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LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS : 



OR, 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC, 

AS IT WAS AND IS. 



BY REV. HENRY TV'CHEEVER, 

♦ I 

AUTHOR OF U THE ISLAND WORLD OF THE PACIFIC," U THE WHALE AND 
HIS CAPTORS," ETC. 



WITH ENGRAVINGS, 



Histories makj mjn-rcice; poetry, \ritty ; iHoe m^tLema'acs, subtle; natural 
philosophy, gra\*e ; logic- ex.5, rhetoric, etolvJ to^coatcnd ? % oyjigei? and travels, to 
entertain and illustrate. Loed Bacon - . 






NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY A. S. BARNES & CO., 

NO. 51 JOHN-STREET. 

CINCINNATI:— H. W. DERBY & CO. 

1851. 

fci&H. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-one, 

By A. S. BARNES & COMPANY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
District of New York. 






Stereotyped by 

RICHARD C. VALENTINE, 

New York. 



F. C. GUTIERREZ, Printer, 
Corner of John, and Dutch streets 



PREFACE, 



We call this book "The Heart of the Pacific, 55 for two 
reasons : first, because the Sandwich or Hawaiian Isl- 
ands, which form its subject-matter, hold about the 
same- relation to other parts of the Pacific as the heart 
does to the rest of the human body. Second, because 
these Islands bid fair to become the religious Protest- 
ant Heart of the great Ocean, whose pulsations at dif- 
ferent times we have herein marked and interpreted. 

Although independent and whole of itself, it has a 
connection which will be seen with "The Island-World 
of the Pacific. 55 The writer believes it may fulfil a 
useful part, in directing the general interest now felt in 
the young Island-Kingdom of Hawaii. The perpetuity 
of the pure Hawaiian race there is daily becoming 
more and more doubtful. But, as it has been re- 
marked of New Zealand, the natives, though melting 
away, are not lost. They are emerging into another 
and a better class. In this process there lacketh not 
sin on man's part ; but Providence will overrule it for 
good, and bring forth an order of things which shall 



PREFACE. 



be far better for the world, for the Church of Christ, 
and for the new race. 

Perhaps it is in the providential plan of the world's 
great Ruler, that the Sandwich Islands should yet be 
adopted into the great American Confederacy. Won 
as they have been from the lowest barbarism by Amer- 
ican missionaries, — having had expended upon them 
in the process, nearly a million and a half of dollars 
from America, and the services of fifty families now pos- 
sessing there valuable homesteads, — harboring a per- 
manent American population, foremost in energy and 
influence, now little short of one thousand, besides a 
floating American population that touch and recruit 
annually to the number of fifteen thousand, in whale- 
ships and merchantmen, — and consuming yearly a mil- 
lion of dollars' worth of American merchandise ; — on 
all these grounds there would seem to be a propriety 
in their enjoying an American Protectorate, if not an 
admission under the flag of the American Republic. 

" American enterprise," says a writer* who has been 
for many years familiar with the history and progress 
of the Hawaiian Islands, "both commercial and philan- 
thropic, has invested the group with its present politi- 
cal importance — bestowing upon the inhabitants laws, 
religion, civilization — and will soon add to these gifts 

* J J. Jarves. 



PREFACE. 5 

language ; for the English tongue is rapidly superseding 
the Hawaiian. The Islanders have thus a moral claim 
upon the American nation for protection. In no way- 
can this be more efficiently bestowed than by receiving 
them into the family of this great Republic. The na- 
tive population are as well prepared to be American 
citizens, as the multitude of European emigrants. Un- 
like the generality of them^ they can read and write, 
and have already acquired democratic ideas under the 
operation of their own liberal constitution of govern- 
ment, which will readily enable them to incorporate 
themselves under our institutions. They are destined 
to be supplanted in numbers and power by a foreign 
race. They desire us to be their successors and pro- 
tectors. The present revenues of the Islands are more 
than adequate to the expenses of its government — 
time, opportunity, the interests of the inhabitants and 
ourselves point to this result." 

Events will soon determine whether they are to re- 
tain th^ir independency, or to be merged in the na- 
tion that has civilized them. In either event they are 
to constitute no mean a portion of the kingdom of 
Christ ; and if this book shall be found to have helped 
at all to the production of that better order of things, 
when He whose eight it is shall keign, the labor be- 
stowed on it at a time when the decay of health, and cir- 
cumstances not to be controlled, precluded the exercise 



6 PREFACE. 

of the Ministry, will be amply rewarded. It is one 
man's mission in this world to do ; it is another's to re- 
cord and perpetuate the memory of worthy deeds. And, 
in John Newton's judgment, it would make little differ- 
ence to an angel who should visit our earth, upon 
which of the two he were sent by the angels' Lord. 

Next, at least in our view, to the honor of being 
one's self a laborious and successful foreign missionary, 
is that of being permitted to describe and preserve the 
achievements of other missionaries, and to portray the 
benign results to society at large, which have been real- 
ized by good men and true, on the noble field of Prot- 
estant Missionary benevolence in the Pacific. Having 
steadily aimed to present to his readers none other than 
the real, which is the hopeful aspect of the missionary 
life and enterprise at the Sandwich Islands, the author 
believes that this volume will gain a grateful echo 
from the great Heart of Christian Philanthropy, as it 
is a true report from that portion of our common hu- 
manity whence it purports to issue. 

But in this and three previous volumes, though 
pleased to minister both pleasure and profit to all our 
readers, we have written mainly for Seamen ; and 
while aiming to entertain and instruct them, have de- 
sired also to cultivate and quicken their perceptions of 
the true, the good, the sublime, and the beautiful in 
man, nature, art, and religion. We have, therefore, 



PREFACE. 



felt justified in making free use of the rich treasures of 
English poetry, 

To point a moral, and adorn a tale. 

We have desired, in so doing, to enhance the value of 
this book to the class of readers for whom it has been 
made, without lessening its interest for any — 

Lectorem delectando simul atque monendo. 

With these remarks, while the work is honestly com- 
mended to the patronage of all classes, the author 
would be happy if it might find such favor with the 
liberal merchant and ship-owner, that they should se- 
cure it a place in The Cabin Boy's Locker. The de- 
sign of furnishing a suitable Literature for the sea, in a 
convenient, accessible, and cheap form, is one which 
we have for some time entertained, since observing the 
lamentable destitution of it on the Ocean. By leave of 
a gracious Providence, and with aid from others, we 
mean to do something to supply this deficiency, and to 
put it out of the power of shipmasters to plead, that 
they do not know where to procure a suitable Library 
for the Sea. 

To them and to their Seamen this volume is accord- 
ingly dedicated, as being an humble attempt to furnish 
something better than the medley of Flash Literature 
usually found in the Cabin-Locker and the Sailor's 
Chest. 



8 PEEFACE. 



The Appendix is meant to supply to business men 
and travellers, as well as to Seamen, those reliable sta- 
tistics respecting the government, resources, commerce, 
growth, and prosperity of the Hawaiian Islands, which 
all visitors, or any persons who are seeking accurate 
information respecting a country, desire to have at 
hand. In lieu of something more perfect, it is hoped 
that this may answer as a guide-book and vade-mecum 
to tourists in the Pacific. 

In connection with the tinted engravings, the au- 
thor and publishers regret certain typographical errors, 
which were not observed till the edition was in part 
printed. The candid reader is therefore requested to 
read on the vignette title-page, Kaahumanu, for Kaa- 
hamann, and Hawaiian, for Hawanan. 

New York, August 2Qth, 1851. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

LOCAL TRADITIONS OF CAPTAIN COOK, AND GLIMPSES OF OLD PAGANISM IN 
THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 

A notable wonder — Curious Fancies of the Natives respecting the first 
Ship — They venture nigh in Canoes — They recognize their god Lono — 
They pay Divine Worship to Captain Cook — They grow familiar with the 
Haoles — They smart under Indignities and Exactions — The bent bow 
snaps — 'They are undeceived — The Denouement — He groans — He is not 
a god— The Fight^-The Fall— The Retreat— The burning of the Naviga- 
tor's Body— The Exploits of Phillips— The Narrative of Ledyard— The 
Revenge — The Providence — We stand where Cook fell — We visit the 
Spot where his Body was burned — Monumental Inscription — Natural 
reflection upon his end— Forms of the Old Idolatry — Pagan Notions re- 
specting the Soul — The Realms of Wakea and Milu — Providence and 
Grace in the Heart of the Pacific Page 19 



CHAPTER II. 

KEALAKEKUA BAY NOW AND THIRTY YEARS AGO. 

The Trail from Kailua — Observed Wealth of Nature — Insight of the Spir- 
itual through the Veil of the Natural — Analogy drawn and Lessons de- 
rived — We view the Ocean from on high — Coffee Plantation of a Man 
from Maine — A Relic from the Times of Kamehameha the Great — The 
Premises of a Missionary heave in sight — Primitive Hospitality — City of 
Refuge at Honaunau — The Iona of Hawaii — Ellis's Account of it quarter 

, of a Century ago — The hideous Corpse of Paganism — The Deeds of 
Despots — Legendary Exploit of an Hawaiian Gracchus — Sole Feature of 
Humanity in the System of Paganism — Human Sacrifices — Numbers 
once Immolated — Last at Kealakekua — Comparison of Christianity with 
Paganism — Incredible Change — The Theme of Song — The transforming 
Agent— Investment of a Massachusetts Wheelwright — How to make 

1* 



10 CONTENTS. 



eighteen hundred per cent, by a Donation to Missions — Death and Life 
springing from the same Bay of Kealakekua — Sketches of Obookiah — 
Providential Voyage to America, and Adoption at Cornwall — Other 
Links in the Chain of Providence — Adventures of Thomas Hopu — 
Hopes from the Cornwall School — Natural Disappointment — The Heart 
of the Pacific in 1820 and 1850 — Blessedness of the Change Page 34 

CHAPTEE III. 

LAHAINA AND ITS ENVIRONS ON THE ISLAND OF MATJI. 

Good-bye to Hawaii — Grateful Eeminiscences — The Continental Character 
of Missionaries — Portraiture of a good Priest — Eun to Maui by Whale- 
ship — Facilities for Eecruiting at Lahaina — Seamen's Chaplain — Gratu- 
itous Services of Missionaries — Sailors always careless when not cared 
for — Winding up of a Liberty-day at Lahaina, in the season of Ships — 
An honorable Pre-eminence — Hawaiians a Surf-playing — Sea-bathing a 
national Passion — A young Eorest of Cocoanuts — Improvements under 
the old System of Tyranny an Invitation to Eobbery and Extortion — 
Eevolution in Progress — Its benign Effects — Love's Labor never Lost 
— Solace to the Philanthropist in the event of the Nation's Decease — 
Lahaina at the poetic Distance and close at Hand — Native Stone Meet- 
ing-house — Power of the Gospel there — Liberality and Means of the 
Church — Array of Arguments for the People supporting their own 
Ministers — Peculiar Advantages at Lahaina — The Hawaiian Democracy 
— Eemarkable running out of the Eace of Eulers — Precious Dust in 
God's- Acre — Character and Influence of the High Chief Hoapili — A 
striking Anecdote — Vistas of Prophecy opened— Tendency of Things 
— Cheering Progress 59 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THE FOOTSTEPS OF BEAUTY TRACED BY A TRAVELLER IN NATURE, LANGUAGE, 

AND RELIGION. 

A Canoe takes us to Wailuku — Elements of the Beautiful at Home and 
Abroad — Morning on the Mountain — Effect of natural Scenery upon 
Childhood — Curious Hawaiian Etymologies — A Catalogue of queer Ap- 
pellatives— The peculiar Genius and Idioms of the Hawaiian Tongue — 
Words to be domesticated into English — Conversational Uses of the 
Native — Commendable Solicitude of Hawaiians for the Purity of their 
Language — Classical Discussion at an Assembly of Teachers — Fear of 
barbarous Innovations from Abroad — A Book of Fables suggested — 
Their Uses illustrated — Isaac Taylor on the Employment of the Esopian 
Vehicle of Instruction— Notices of the Wailuku Church and Pastor — 



CONTENTS. 11 



Eesolutions for the independent Support of the Ministry — Praiseworthy 
instance of Hawaiian Gratitude — Mr. Green's Experiment at Makawao 
— Beneficial Eesults — Eeasonings of Natives — Union of Faith and 
Works — Affecting Tests of Christianity — Eesolves of Pastors prepara- 
tory to Independency — Initiatory Steps — Eemarkable Consummation in 
the Jubilee Year of the Nineteenth Century Page 82 



CHAPTEE V. 

A GLANCE AT THE PROVINCE AND RESULT OF MISSIONS IN THE HEART OF THE 
PACIFIC, AND A VISIT TO THE PALACE OF THE SUN. 

A passing Tribute to the true modern Apostles — Character of Protestant 
Civilization — Theory and Practice at Wailuku — History and Progress of 
the Female Seminary — Province of Woman in the work of Civilization 
— How fulfilled — Examination of Schools — Hawaiian Girls — Trip to the 
Crater of Hale-a-ka-la — We reach the Brim — Novel Scene opened at the 
Top — Spectacle of Grandeur and Glory presented by the Clouds — A 
Play-ground for the Youth of Heaven — Feelings belonging to such a 
Position — Man's Nothingness and the Creator's Glory— Ehap so dy of 
Eowland Hill — Luther's View of the majestic Vault of God — Lesson we 
learned from the lofty Look-out of Hale-a-ka-la — A Sight from the Cliffs 
of Eternity — Montgomery's Imprecation — We are let down safely — We 
pass to the Sugar-making on East Maui — Farming Lands — Horseback 
Eoute through Haiku — Sand-hills and ancient Golgotha — Eeflections on 
a Skull — Evidence of former Culture and dense Population — Present 
Eecord of Deaths and Births — Mortality of the Year 1848 by Measles — 
Culture of Eice by Chinamen — Fine Appearance of the Garden and 
Terraces of Wailuku — Entertainment at the Seminary — Sports with the 
Children 102 



CHAPTEE VI. 

SE:ETCHES OF THE BLIND PREACHER AND THE BIRTH-PLACE OF KAAHTJMANU, 

IN EAST MAUI. 

The Law of Compensation illustrated — Memorials of the first Convert to 
Christianity — His Birth and Boyhood — Early Deformity and Loss of 
Sight — Skill in the Hula — Adoption by the Court as a Buffoon — Aban- 
doned to perish — Dawning of the Day-spring — He hears of Christ — He 
turns to the Pono — The Chiefs send for him to make Sport — Memorable 
Answer — Journal respecting him — Affecting Attitude — Divine Sov- 
ereignty exemplified — Probation for the Church — Eecord of his Exami- 
nation — First-fruits — He grows and endures — Light breaks — Light is 
withdrawn — He is thrown upon Memory — He hides the Word of God 



12 CONTENTS. 



— Acquires extraordinary Strength and Tenacity of Memory — Labors 
effectively with the Missionaries — Is licensed to preach the Gospel — - 
Account of one of his Sermons — Power as a Preacher — Surprise of the 
Missionaries — Eesources of Illustration — Ministry in Honuaula — Life 
and Death — We pass and ponder his Field of Labor — Supposed Mental 
Exercises in his Blindness — We proceed to Hana — Kemarkable Eoad 
over Clinkers — How made, and by whom — After-streams from the Vol- 
cano — The Warfare of a Night — Victory to the Ukulele — A Chief of the 
olden Time — A Dance at Kaupo — Perils by Canoe — Sketches of the Mis- 
sionary Station of Hana — Natural Features and Productions — Eiding 
up to the Clouds — Cave where Kaahumanu was born — Two strange 
Things in the Kingdom of Nature and Kingdom of Grace — A volcanic 
Bathing-house Page 127 

CHAPTEK VII. 

ADVENTURE, ESCAPE, AND ARRIVAL AT MOLOEAI. 

We embark in the double Canoe — Sudden Catastrophe — Men swept over- 
board — A special Providence — How we are saved — A Traveller's Hymn 
— Emotions of Gratitude and Impulses of Obedience — Behavior of the 
Natives — Effect of Familiarity with Danger — Eemark of Butler — The 
Psalm of Life — The fatal Sequel of another Disaster — Conflict with the 
Sharks — They win the Day — The Eaft rises — Few escape — We gain the 
Eeef— Lagoons for Fish — How to make abstract Numbers concrete — 
Eeefs described — Spiritual Analogies and Lessons derived — Eules for 
the Navigator — The Divine Pilot — Ocean of Futurity — Site of the Mo- 
lokai Mission — Head-quarters of iEolus — A Missionary's Grapery — The 
two Vineyards, Natural and Moral — Division of Labor — Church and 
School — Industrial Enterprise — The Maids of Molokai — Native Costume 
versus the Foreign — Court Fashion and Eules of Dress — The Queen's 
Way of Conformity — Criticism on the fashionable Habiliments of the 
Sex — Honest Eemonstrance and Satire by Dana 152 

CHAPTEE VIII. 

THE CORAL MASONRY AND CORALS OF MOLOKAI AND OTHER PARTS OF THE 
ISLAND WORLD OF THE PACIFIC. 

Curious Work of Zoophytes — Sub-marine Gardens described — Living 
Specimens exhibited — Letting a Crab out of Prison — How the Corals 
grow — Theory for the Formation of a Coral Island — The Tumuli of a 
buried Continent — Evidence of a re-elevatory Process — Geological 
Phenomena not accounted for — Observations of Williams, the Martyr 
of Eromanga — Effect of Electricity in precipitating the Particles of 



CONTENTS. 13 



Lime in Sea- water — Instances adduced — The Part it may have in the 
Formation of Eeefs — Views of Sir David Brewster examined — Mixture 
of Fancy and Fact — Experiments of Peyronnel — Philosophical Analysis 
— Secrets of Nature's Laboratory — Eesults of Coral Architecture — As- 
tonishing Amount of Matter solidified — Observations of Captain Flinders 
— Conditions necessary to the Perfection of Coral — The Coral Builders 
watched — Work described — Banks reared — World-matter — Half-way 
Island — Coral Formations of Eimatara — Honolulu Eeef— Mediterranean 
and Eed Sea Coral — Eate of Growth — Effect of Light — Agents that re- 
duce it — Indian Ocean Coral — Appearance of a Eeef between the Tides 
— Millions of Worms observed — Facts gathered from Navigators — Coral 
of Prose and of Poetry — Moss Corals by the Microscope — Zoophytic 
Tribes classified by the Geologist of the U. S. Exploring Squadron — 
Scientific Deductions — Fejee Island Eeefs described — Vast Size of in- 
dividual Specimens — Notices of the Kingsmill Group — Vast Depth of 
Soundings off the Eeef — Uses of Coral — Natural and ^Esthetic Ends 
served Page 175 



CHAPTEE IX. 

REMINISCENCES OF LAHAINALTLNA, AND SKETCHES OF THE FIRST HAWAIIAN 

COLLEGE. 

We recross the Molokai Channel by Canoe — Sketch of an Hawaiian Col- 
lege — Internal Economy and Discipline — Origin and History — Faculty 
and Course of Study — Intention of the Founders — Ability and Useful- 
ness of the first Graduates — Laws ahead of Morals — Wisdom not always 
married to the Wise — Prudence not limited to the Prudential — A Eevo- 
lution in Progress — Signs of the Times — Entente Cordiale — Natural 
Differences of Opinion among Missionaries — A Pastor's Expedient to 
sound the Knowledge of his Flock — Great Difficulty of being simple 
enough in the exhibition of Truth — Eemarkable Answers of Natives — 
Heathen Destitution of common Ideas — Consequent Inappreciation of 
Scripture — Similar Experience of Missionaries in the East — Eemarkable 
Cases in Proof— Fruits of the great Eevival — Eeasonings of practical 
Men — Sources of correct Information — How to find the Meridian of 
Truth — Illustration from the working of Longitude by Lunars .... 198 



CHAPTEE X. 

HAWAIIAN LITERATURE AND LETTER- WRITERS. 

Number of printed Works in the Hawaiian Tongue — Literary Contribu- 
tions of Natives — Newspapers in the Vernacular — An original Work on 



14 



CONTENTS. 



Hawaiian History — Installation of Native Ministers — A Collection of old 
Meles — Translation of an original Song on the Creation— Specimens of 
Cupid's Epistolography — Letter from a Damsel of Lahaina — Others from 
Students of the Seminary — Samples of the Hawaiian Madrigal — A Let- 
ter from the Hilo School-girls — Others from Teachers in Kohala — Cu- 
rious Vernacular Idioms — Letters from Men of Hawaii to a Society of 
Ladies in America — Comments and Correspondences — Unique Epistle 
from a Native Teacher — Ingenuous working of regenerated Minds — A 
Study for the Philosopher — A Trophy of Triumph for the Christian 
— Other Specimens of Hawaiian Literature — Cheering Proofs of 
Progress Page 221 



CHAPTEE XL 

RIDE ABOUND THE ISLAND OF OAHTT, AND NOTES BY THE WAY. 

We return to Honolulu— Festivities of the Anniversary of Independence 
— Effect upon Public Morals — Natural hankering after the Leeks and 
Flesh-pots of Heathenism — Converts from Paganism now and in the 
Apostles' day, one and the same — Comparison Instituted — We mount 
for Kaneohe — Visit by the Way to the Country Villa of the King and 
Chiefs — Work, Trial, and Eeward of the Pastor at Kaneohe — Mistaken 
Timidity in admitting to the Church — Arguments for and against — Cor- 
roborative Views of Isaac Taylor — Practical working of an open Church 
Polity and a close one contrasted — Going to Egypt for the Corn of 
Scandal — Much ado about Nothing — Leonato to Antonio — We halt at 
Waialua — Contrasts of Natural Scenery — Kaneohe the supposed Pit of 
an old Volcano — Toilsome Descent — Picturesque View from its Brink — ■ 
Face of the Country between the two Stations — Hospitality of a Teacher 
at Hauula — Deportment of Natives met with on the Way — The stale 
Charge of Hypocrisy considered — No new Thing for Eeligion to be 
pressed into the Service of Selfishness — Examples of double Dealing in 
the Pacific, by Foreigners — Prevalent Forms of Self-deception among 
the Natives — Causes assigned — Treatment of Cases when discovered — 
Eigor of Church Discipline — The Usages of the Church an Education 
for Eepublicanism — The future Eepublic of the Pacific — A Prophecy 
ventured 244 



CHAPTEE XII. 

SIDE VIEWS OF HAWAIIAN CHARACTER AND DESTINY. 

Relative Position and Fortunes of the Posterity of Shem and Japheth— 
Practical Bearing upon the Labors of Missionaries — The ground Princi- 



CONTENTS. 15 



pie of Success — Variety of Talents called into Exercise — How to be be- 
loved and useful — Study of Books versus the Study of Human Nature 
— Something had and Something wanting at Waialua — A Maxim 
gathered from Observation — Management of Cases of Casuistry— A 
common Weakness commented upon — Difference of Behavior between 
sentimental and genuine Sorrow — The acting of a fine Mind when Sin 
or Grief-stricken, and that of a coarse Mind — The Hawaiian Infirmity 
illustrated by a Eact — The Pea-hen everywhere — Native Volubility and 
Destitution of Shame — Charities of the "Waialua Church — A Manual La- 
bor School — How established and why abandoned — We journey to Ewa 
— A successful Experiment at Self-support — Eemarkable Proof of Dis- 
interestedness — Progress reported — Honor to whom Honor is due — Fact 
and Cause of the Nation's Decay — Alarming Statistics — Eeport of a Com- 
mittee on Moral Eeform — Eesponsibility of Foreigners who have fed the 
National Vice — Moral Strength of the Government now and formerly — 
Suppression of Vice the Duty of Magistrates — Plea of Virtue and Hu- 
manity — Sophisms of the Selfish and Impure — Eighteous Eeasonings 
of the Duke in the moral Play of Measure for Measure Page 262 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF A QUARTER CENTURY IN THE HEART OF THE 

PACIFIC. 

We join Ship and weigh Anchor — Life and the World seen from Below 
and from Aloft — Differences in the View made by Differences in the 
Position and personal Estate of the Beholder — Light from Eternity col- 
ored by the stained Glass of the Mind — Hope for the Convalescent — 
Holding a Telescope to the Past— The great Landmarks — Astonishing 
Statistics of Progress — Consecutive Eeview of Civilization and Chris- 
tianity in the Heart of the Pacific — Detail of Eesults and Emits, Eco- 
nomic, Literary, and Eeligious — Work to be done Projected — True Bela- 
tion and Uses of the Sandwich Islands to America — Necessary leaning 
of the one upon the other for Years to come — Disastrous Effects to be 
apprehended if the Prop should be withdrawn — The true Policy of the 
Christian Church in the Missionary Enterprise — Purposes of Providence 
in the Island World — Chain of Events — Outlook upon the Future — 
Probable Type of Society — Transplanted Puritanism — Strict Sabbath- 
keeping — Anecdote of the Governor of Oahu — Facts illustrative of Na- 
tional Habits — First Law the Decalogue — A Change too great to be 
credited — To whom and what the People ascribe it — Unbounded Con- 
fidence reposed in their religious Teachers — First Experiments by the 
Chiefs — Fruits of the Trial — Unparalleled Instance of a moral Ascend- 
ency — Illustrative Anecdote of the present King — Traducers silenced 



16 CONTENTS. 



and put to Shame — Position of Dignity and Eminence — How attained 
and the Ends to be answered by it — Relations of the Hawaiian Islands 
to China, California, Mexico, and South America — Vista of Futurity 
opened — Conjectures ventured — Ground of their Fulfilment — False- 
hoods met — Shafts of Calumny repelled — Counter Testimony — Histo- 
rians noticed — Volume concluded Page 283 



APPENDIX. 

Tabular Statistics of Exports and Imports at the Sandwich Islands for 
1850 — Eesources and Eevenue of the Hawaiian Kingdom — Government 
Expenses, Trade and Commerce — Tabular View of Educational and 
Eeligious Progress — Commercial Position and Advantages of Honolulu 
— Review and Summary of the French Difficulties — Documentary His- 
tory of the Negotiations with France— Rules of Conference, Protocols, 
and final Declaration — Appeal to the United States — Progress of the 
Anglo-Saxon Race — Copy of the late Treaty with the United States— 
Notes — Professor Agassiz on Corals — Speculations as to their Uses — 
Testimony of Sir George Simpson and R. C. Wyllie to the Value of the 
Hawaiian Mission — Extraordinary Results in Molokai 



LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. 

KEALAKEKUA BAY IN THE DATS OF CAPTAIN COOK Frontispiece. 

KAAHUMANU, QUEEN DOWAGER OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 

in 1820 .•. Vignette Title. 

CHART OF TTHE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS To face p. 19. 

OLD HAWAIIAN IDOLS " " 28. 

LAHAINA AND LAHALNALUNA FROM THE ANCHORAGE AT 

MAUI " " 62. 

THE HAWAIIAN SPORT OF SURF-PLAYING " " 66. 

VALLEY AND MOUNTAINS OF WAILUKU " " 126. 

A SANDWICH ISLANDS DOUBLE CANOE p. 174. 

K CIRCULAR CORAL ISLAND OF THE PACIFIC p. 197. 



LIFE TN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, 



CHAPTER I. 

LOCAL TRADITIONS OF CAPTAIN COOK, AND GLIMPSES OF OLD 
PAGANISM IN THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 

Gliding through Magellan's Straits, 
Where two oceans ope their gates, 
Now th' immense Pacific smiles 
Round ten thousand sunny Isles. 

A notable wonder— Curious fancies of the Natives respecting the first Ship— They ven- 
ture nigh in Canoes — They recognize their god Lono — They pay divine worship to 
Captain Cook — They grow familiar with the Haoles — They smart under indignities 
and exactions— The bent bow snaps— They are undeceived — The denouement— He 
groans— He is not a god— The fight— The fall— The retreat — The burning of the 
navigator's body — The exploits of Phillips — The narrative of Ledyard— The revenge 
— The providence — We stand where Cook fell — We visit the spot where his body 
was burned — Monumental inscription — Natural reflection upon his end — Forms of 
the old idolatry — Pagan notions respecting the soul — The realms of Wakea and Milu 
— Providence and Grace in the Heart of the Pacific. 

Threescore and thirteen years ago there appeared in 
the serene waters of a far island in the Pacific a notable 
wonder, which has been succeeded by a greater wonder 
still. Two ships, significantly called the Resolution and 
Discovery, cast anchor in an unknown bay, called by 
its aborigines Kaawaroa, or Kealakekua. They were 
conimanded by an intrepid navigator, of the most in- 
trepid and daring race that has ever ploughed the seas. 
Their prows had ventured into strange oceans, and had 
broken the primeval stillness of bays and roadsteads 



20 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



which are now whitened with the wings of Commerce, 
and struck by the propellers of mighty Steamers, then 
an idea all unknown but to the Creative Mind who has 
since given the steamboat, through Fulton, as a be- 
nignant boon to our race. 

These adventurous ships had anchored in the night, 
as upon the coast of an undiscovered country, with 
thoughts, perhaps, like those which a navigator in a 
balloon would now have, whose anchor should catch at 
midnight on some floating island of the great ocean 
of air. In the morning, when the natives on shore first 
beheld the strange sight, they were wild with amaze- 
ment and conjecture. Unable to tell whence the wonder 
came, or what it was, or how to express their astonish- 
ment at the sight, they cried out, " Moku ! moku !" the 
Hawaiian word for island, as if it were a moving island ; 
and that is their name for a ship to the present day. 

Then, as they gazed from a distance at the ship's 
towering masts and branching spars, they exclaimed, 
" It is a forest that has moved into the sea !" Soon the 
chiefs commanded some of their men to go in canoes 
and find out what this wonderful thing, this new moku, 
might be. They approached so near as to survey, with 
curious dread, the different parts of the ship and the 
men on board ; and then they returned, all wild with 
excitement, and with the vain effort of their undis- 
ciplined minds, to describe what they had seen. 

They had beheld the strangers as they looked over 
the ship's sides eating something red, (being water- 
melon from Monterey,) and to their imagination it was 



STRANGE FANCIES OF THE NATIVES. 21 

the raw flesh of men : they had seen fire and smoke 
about their months from cigars, and they reported them, 
therefore, to be Fire-gods — gods of the Yolcano. They 
told in an exaggerated manner of the whiteness of their 
skin, the brightness of their eyes, their garments rough 
and strange, their heads horned like the moon, and their 
speech all unintelligible gibberish — " A hikapalale, hi- 
kapalale — hioluai, oalakai." 

The fire, they said, burns at their mouths like Pele— 
the Yolcano. They have doors in their sides for prop- 
erty ; openings going far down into their bodies, where 
they thrust their hands, and draw knives, and iron, and 
beads, and cloth, and nails, and every thing else, for 
their bodies are full of treasure. Then a warrior by the 
name of Kapupuu, hearing of the great quantity of iron 
about the ships, (which they had learned the value of 
by what had occasionally drifted ashore in strange 
pieces of wood,) at once said, " I will go and seize the 
iron, for plunder is my business." He boldly went, ac- 
cording to his boast, but while in the act of purloining 
was shot. Then the cluster of canoes with him fled, and 
reported that Eapupuu was slain by a fire-ball, a pu 
from the volcano — the^w being the only instrument like 
a gun which they were acquainted with. 

The succeeding night there was a discharge of cannon 
from on board the ships, and a display of fire-works that 
filled up the measure of wonder and dread in the minds 
of those rude barbarians. Unable to believe any thing 
else than that the new-comers were supernatural beings, 
they called the Captain Lono, that being the name of 



22 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

a fabled god of theirs who had gone into a foreign land, 
and now they supposed had come back. 

It was a tabu-week with them, when canoes were 
ordinarily forbidden from being on the sea, and it was 
death to be seen in one at such a time. But when they 
saw Lono's moku there — -the moving island of their 
god — they were not afraid to use their canoes, because 
their god had come to them, and his ship must be a 
heiau, a temple. When they observed the seamen 
calking the sides of the vessels, they called them Mo- 
kualii's company, Mokualii being the god of canoe- 
makers. Those who had fire at their mouths they de- 
nominated Lono-pele-poe, or Lono's volcano-company. 

But every wonder has its day and its end, and fa- 
miliarity with the liable, as they called the strangers, at 
length began to breed dislike, if not contempt, on the part 
of the eager natives. They found the foreigners to be 
like themselves in lusts and covetousness, if superior 
in power. At length the unwarranted act of the great 
Lono in breaking down the wooden fence of their sacred 
morai, or Tieiau, and loading his boats with it, in order 
to supply his ships with wood, provoked their indigna- 
tion beyond the power of their superstitious dread of 
the gods to restrain. 

Thefts, reprisals, insults, and bloodshed followed 
quick upon one another, until a deep, uncontrollable re- 
sentment was kindled among the natives. But Captain 
Cook — for he was the Lono, even according to the nar- 
rative of Ledyard, one of his men, who landed with 
him on the morning of his death, and was near him 



HOMAGE PAID TO CAPTAIN COOK. 23 

during the fatal contest — blinded by some fatal cause, 
could not perceive it, or, too self-confident, would not 
regard it. 

There is an historical work of much value written in 
the Hawaiian tongue, a few years ago, by some of the 
early adult pupils of the Seminary at Lahaina-luna, and 
called Ka Moolelo Hawaii. Its materials were derived 
from old men then living, and the accounts they gave 
were afterwards compared and corrected by their 
teacher, Rev. Sheldon Dibble, until a valuable au- 
thentic volume grew therefrom. The authors of this 
say, that owing to their conviction that Lono (Captain 
Cook) was a god, the people generally paid him divine 
honors. They offered him hogs, food, Jcapa, (native 
cloth,) and other articles, as they were accustomed to 
bestow them on their deities, not expecting any thing 
in exchange. The priests approached him with pros- 
trations, and cast their red kapa over his shoulders; 
then receding a little, they presented hogs, and a variety 
of other offerings, with long addresses rapidly enunci- 
ated, which were a repetition of their prayers and re- 
ligious homage. 

" If on any occasion he went inland, the mass of the 
people fled through fear, while all who remained fell 
down and worshipped him. He was led into the houses 
and temples of the gods, and worshipped there also ; 
and all this adoration was received without remon- 
strance, as in the case of Herod. Wherefore, some, 
perhaps, may think for this cause, and for another al- 
ready mentioned, he was smitten of God, and died." 



24 LIFE EST THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

These were the circumstances of that melancholy 
event, as gathered from the Moolelo Hawaii, and the 
Life of Ledyard : In a contest that ensued after the 
demolition of the morai by Captain Cook, the stealing 
of one of the ship's boats, and the killing of a chief in 
a canoe, by a shot from one of the ships, the Captain 
imprudently struck a high chief with his sword. Upon 
this the chief, Kalaimano-Kahoowaha, seized him in- 
stinctively with his powerful grasp in order to hold him, 
but with no idea of taking his life, Lono being, in his 
view, a god that could not die. But when he struggled 
to free himself, and groaned as he was about to fall, the 
chief cried, " He groans, he is not a god," and instantly 
slew him. 

The fight then became general, in which many of the 
natives were killed and some of the Captain's guard. In 
the end the savages were routed and fled inland, taking 
with them the bodies of the fallen Navigator, and four 
of his companions. The king there presented the body 
of the captain in sacrifice to the gods, and after that 
ceremony was performed, they proceeded to remove the 
flesh from the bones in order to preserve them. The 
flesh was consumed by fire; the heart was eaten by 
some children who had mistaken it for the heart of a 
dog. Their names were Kupa, Mohoole, and Kaiwi- 
kokoole, one of whom was living only a few years ago. 
Some of the bones of the dead were afterwards returned 
to the ship, and the rest preserved by the priests, and 
worshipped. 

Ledyard's account of the same transactions is this : 



THE NARRATIVE OF LED YARD. 25 



a Cook, perceiving the people determined to oppose his 
designs, and that he should not succeed without further 
bloodshed, ordered the lieutenant of marines, Mr. Phil- 
lips, to withdraw his men and get them into the boats, 
which were then lying ready to receive them. This was 
effected by the sergeant ; but the instant they began to 
retreat Cook was hit with a stone, and perceiving the 
man who threw it, he shot him dead. This occasioned the 
guard to face about and fire, and then the attack be- 
came general. Cook and Mr. Phillips were together, a 
few paces in the rear of the guard, and perceiving a 
general fire without orders, quitted Teraiobu, and ran 
to the shore to put a stop to it ; but not being able to 
make themselves heard, and being close pressed upon 
by the chiefs, they joined the guard, who fired as they 
retreated. 

" Cook having at length reached the margin of the 
water, between the fire of the boats, waved with his hat 
for them to cease firing and come in ; and while he was 
doing this, a chief from behind stabbed him with one of 
our iron daggers, just under the shoulder-blade, and it 
passed quite through his body.' Cook fell with his face 
in the water, and immediately expired. Mr. Phillips 
not being able any longer to use his fusee, drew his 
sword, and engaging the chief whom he saw kill Cook, 
soon dispatched him. 

" His guard, in the mean time, were alt killed but two, 
and they had plunged into the water and were swim- 
ming to the boats. He stood thus for some time the butt 
of all their force, and being as complete in the use of 



26 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

his sword as he was accomplished, his noble achieve- 
ments struck the barbarians with awe. But being 
wounded, and growing faint from loss of blood and ex- 
cessive action, he plunged into the sea with his sword 
in hand and swam to the boats ; where, however, he 
was scarcely taken on board, before somebody saw one 
of the marines that swam from the shore, lying flat upon 
the bottom. Phillips, hearing this, threw himself in 
after him, and brought him up with him to the surface 
of the water, and both were taken in. 

" The boats had hitherto kept up a very hot fire, and 
lying off without the reach of any weapon but stones, 
had received no damage ; and, being fully at leisure to 
keep up an unremitted and uniform action, made great 
havoc among the Indians, particularly among the 
chiefs, who stood foremost in the crowd and were most 
exposed. But, whether it was from their bravery, or 
ignorance of the real cause that deprived so many of 
them of life, that they made such a stand, may be ques- 
tioned, since it is certain that they in general, if not 
universally, understood heretofore, that it was the fire 
only of our arms that destroyed them. 

" This opinion seems to be strengthened by the cir- 
cumstance of the large, thick mats they were observed 
to wear, which were also constantly kept wet; and, 
furthermore, the Indian that Cook fired at with a blank 
discovered no fear, when he found his mat unburnt, 
saying, in their language, when he showed it to the 
bystanders, that no fire had touched it. This may be 
supposed at least to have had some influence. It is, 



THE SPOT WHERE COOK FELL. 27 

owever, certain, whether from one or both these 
causes, that the numbers that fell made no apparent 
impression on those who survived ; they were imme- 
diately taken off,- and had their places supplied in a 
constant succession. 

"Lieutenant Gore, who commanded as first lieutenant 
under Cook in the Resolution, which lay opposite the 
place where this attack was made, perceiving, with 
his glass, that the guard on shore was cut off, and that 
i Cook had fallen, immediately passed a spring upon 
one of the cables, and, bringing the ship's starboard 
guns to bear, fired two round-shots over the boats into 
the middle of the crowd ; and both the thunder of the 
cannon and the effects of the shot operated so power- 
1 fully, that it produced a most precipitate retreat from 
the shore to the town." 

It will be seen thus that the two records, Hawaiian 
and English, of the melancholy transactions which give 
such unwonted interest to this spot, substantially agree. 
Hereafter pilgrim tourists in the Pacific visiting this 
place, will find it replete with historical associations 
mellowed by time ; and glowing perhaps with enthu- 
siasm, they will quote the oft-reiterated words of John- 
son : — Far from me be such frigid philosophy as would 
Conduct us indifferent or unmoved, over any ground 
dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. — But, although 
I have trodden the lava rock where the justly incensed 
barbarians slew the great navigator, calling aloud, " He 
groans, — he is not a god;" and have swum in the Bay's 
blue waters at that very point ; and have read the cop- 



28 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

perplate inscriptions upon the stump of the memorable 
cocoanut-tree put there by British men-of-war; and 
have been to the place further inland, where a rude 
monument tells us that his flesh was burned ; — yet at 
neither locality could I start productively the medita- 
tive or heroic mood. 

Perhaps it is because the imaginative notions of my 
boyhood, respecting the Great Captain and Discoverer 
in the Island World of the Pacific, have been reluctant- 
ly corrected by the more accurate information obtained 
here on the spot in Hawaii-nei. The footprints Cook 
has left on the sands of time, great as he was in many 
respects, will never w T ear out ; but the place and the 
manner of his death we should contemplate less pain- 
fully, had the illustrious navigator, whose blood three- 
score and ten years ago crimsoned these peaceful wa- 
ters, done more to direct the untaught natives to the 
Great Jehovah, instead of receiving divine homage 
himself, 

God will not have his glory given to another, nor 
will he with impunity let selfish gain be made out of 
the principle of reverence for higher powers, which 
himself has implanted in the human constitution. 
Captain Cook wrongly attempted this, although, as 
we would fain believe, not aware to what extent the 
offerings paid him were meant as homage to a 
God. Hence, in the order of retributive Providence, 
his ignominious death at the hands of the very in- 
censed barbarians w T hom he had allowed to worship 
him. 



FORMS OF THE OLD IDOLATRY. 29 

A glimpse of the besotted idolatry which the abo- 
rigines of this Island Kingdom of Hawaii were then 
addicted to, and of the moral state of Hawaii as it was, 
may be gathered from the engravings we give of some 
of their idol gods. 

It is a matter of curious interest to the philosopher, 
in tracing the origin of the religious and mythological 
notions of different savage tribes, to observe how they 
are always modified by the physical objects, usages, 

j and scenery with which they are chiefly conversant. 
The most terrific and impressive of all visible things 

; to Hawaiians being the Volcano, or Lua Pele, and its 
cause unknown, they attributed all its' phenomena to 
gods there living, and those gods their imaginations 

1 made like unto themselves. 

Thus, the .conical craters in the bed of the volcano 
they regarded as the houses of their gods, where they 
amused themselves by playing at Jconane, the favorite 

! Hawaiian game of drafts. The roaring of the volca- 
no's furnaces, and the crackling of its sulphurous 
flames, were deemed by them the Tca/ni to the hula of 
their gods, that is, the music of their dances, which were 
naturally attributed to them, from their own addicted- 
ness to the same. The red flamirfg surge in the cal- 

v dron of the volcano they called the surf, where their 
gods played like themselves with surf-boards on the 
great Pacific rollers. 

In like manner, the Greenlanders and Esquimaux of 
the Arctic regions, when first visited by Moravians, be- 
lieved every thing in heaven to be after the pattern of 



30 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

things on their earth ; and they found it difficult to be 
satisfied with the Bible promise of the Christian heav- 
en, because it did not contain seals. The arch of heav- 
en, in their view, turns round on the pivot of a high, 
sharp peak, far to the north. The Great Bear they 
compare to a sort of bench, on which they fasten their 
ropes and harpoons for the capture of seal. The belt 
of Orion consists of Greenlanders, who were placed 
there because they could not find the way to their 
own country. The Pleiades are howling dogs, which 
surround a .white bear. The red stars take their color 
from eating seals' livers, the white foom eating seals' 
brains. The Northern Lights are caused by the souls 
of the dead playing at ball. In the sky there is an 
immense lake, confined by a dam ; when the water 
overflows this dam, it rains ; and if the dam should 
break, heaven would fall, and crush the earth. 

The deities worshipped by Hawaiians were called 
by the general name Akua, and the number of them 
was unlimited, expressed by their word hini. Mr. 
Dibble says the Hawaiians had six deities to whom 
they gave names, but oftener addressed only four, 
Ku, Lono, Kane, and Kanaloa. After naming these 
four, and sometimes six, they then added the expres- 
sion, the forty thousand, and the four hundred thou- 
sand gods, meaning an indefinite number. 

These deities they regarded as spirits who had their 
residence above, or in the clouds. They attributed to 
them all the proud, fierce, cruel, and impure passions 
of men ; and supposed them of course to delight in the 




OLD HAWAIIAN IDOLS 



HAWAIIAN NOTIONS OF THE SOUL. 31 

sufferings, and in the immolation even of human victims. 
The people worshipped them usually by means of idols, 
supposing that after the performance of certain cere- 
monies on the images, they became repositories, or at 
least suitable remembrancers of the spirits above. The 
people deny that they actually worshipped the wood 
and the stone, and to explain their use of images, they 
refer at once to the practice of the Komanists with pic- 
tures and symbols. 

" In regard to the soul, they had very inadequate and 
confused notions. They supposed that after death the 
soul, or rather the ghost, lingered for some time about 
the deceased body, haunted in dark places, and made 
its attempts occasionally in the night to strangle its 
enemies. If any one was afflicted in the night with the 
incubus, or night-mare, he regarded it as the attack of 
some ghost upon his throat. On the evening of a dark 
night I heard a horrid shriek in the street ; it was that 
of a strong, athletic man running with all speed, with 
both hands at his throat, endeavoring to tear something 
away. He soon reached the door of a house, burst his 
way in, and fell on the floor, terrified even to faintness 
and insensibility. He imagined that the ghost of a 
chief, who had deceased the day before, had a firm 
gripe upon his throat, and was about to strangle him."* 

The old Hawaiian notion of a future state was, that 
after death the ghost went first to the region above be- 
longing to Wakea, the name of their fir.st progenitor. 

* History of the Sandwich Islands, by Sheldon Dibble, p. 99. 



32 



LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLjtNDS, 



If in this life the man had observed religious rites and 
ceremonies, the ghost was allowed to remain there in 
comfort and pleasure with Wakea. But if the dead 
had failed to be religious here, the soul found no one 
there in the region of Wakea to entertain it, and was 
forced to take a desperate plunge into a place of misery 
below ruled by one they called Milu. 

There are several precipiges from the verge of which 
unhappy souls were formerly supposed to take the leap 
into the world of woe. Three in particular are pointed 
out to the traveller : one at the northern extremity of the 
island of Hawaii, one at the western termination of 
Maui, and a third at the southern point of Oahu. 

We can hardly believe that the confused and indis- 
tinct notions of the ITawaiians respecting a future state, 
or their absurd system of mythology,* at all prepared 

* Idols were of every variety imaginable, from hideous and deformed 
sculptures of wood, to the utmost perfection of their art. The features 
of their religion were embodied in these images ; the most desired object 
in their manufacture being to inspire fear and horror, sentiments which 
in a more refined people would, from such exhibitions, have been con- 
verted into disgust. Pele was the chief goddess. Her principal followers 
were Ka-ma-hu-alii, the King of Steam and Vapor; Ka-poha-i-kahi-ola, 
the Explosion in the palace of life ; Ke-ua-ke-po, the Rain of night • 
Kane-kekili, Thundering god; Ke-o-ahi-kama-kaua, Fire-thrusting child 
of war. These were brothers, and, like Vulcan, two of them were de- 
formed. Ma-kole-wawahi-waa, Fiery-eyed canoe-breaker; Hiaka-wawahi- 
lani, Heaven-dwelling cloud-breaker; and several others of longer names 
and similar definitions ; these latter were sisters. 

The whole family were regarded with the greatest awe. The volcano 
was their principal residence, though occasionally they renovated their con- 
stitutions amid the snows of the mountains. On such occasions their jour- 
neys were accompanied by earthquakes, eruptions, heavy thunder and 
lightning. All were malignant spirits, delighting in acts of vengeance and 



FABLES OF THE PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 33 

them to receive the revelations of Christianity. But as 
it was the work of Divine Providence to make a way 
for the entrance of Divine truth externally, so was it 
the work of the Divine Spirit internally to procure its 
reception to a degree, so unprecedented and remarkable, 
by the mind and heart of the Hawaiian nation. Some 
of the steps in that process, and the triumphant issue of 
the same in the Heart of the Pacific, we will endeavor 
to trace in succeeding chapters that shall present the 
Island Kingdom of Hawaii as it is. 

destruction. Many tributes were assessed to avoid or appease their anger ; 
the greater part of which went to support the numerous and wealthy 
priesthood and their followers, who regulated the worship of Pele. These 
were held in the highest reverence, as holding in their power the de- 
vouring fires of the all-powerful goddess. To insult them, break their 
taboos, or neglect to send offerings, was to call down certain destruction. 
At their call, Pele would spout out her lava and destroy the offenders^ 
Vast numbers of hogs, both cooked and alive, were thrown into the crater 
when any fear of an eruption was entertained, or to stay the progress of 
one commenced. Offerings were annually made to keep her in good hu- 
mor, and no traveller dared venture near her precincts without seeking 
her good-will. — History of the Hawaiian Islands, by James Jackson 
Jarves, pp. 28, 29. Honolulu, 1847. 

2* 



34 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



CHAPTER II. 

KEALAKEKUA BAY NOW AND THIRTY YEARS AGO. 

Till missionaries' feet made glad 

The solitudes by sin made sad ; 

Till songs to Christ took place of cries, 

Shrieked o'er the monarch's sacrifice, — 

No good was there, — no Godhead's beam, 

No light did o'er the future gleam. 

TAPPAN. 



The trail from Kailua — Observed wealth of nature— Insight of the spiritual through 
the veil of the natural — Analogy drawn and lessons derived — We view the ocean 
from on high — Coffee plantation of a man from Maine — A relic from the times of 
Kamehameha the Great — The premises of a missionary heave in sight— Primitive 
hospitality — City of refuge at Honaunau — The Iona of Hawaii — Ellis's account of it 
quarter of a century ago — The hideous corpse of paganism — The deeds of despots — 
Legendary exploit of an Hawaiian Gracchus — Sole feature of humanity in the sys- 
tem of paganism — Human sacrifices — Numbers once immolated — Last at Kealake- 
kua — Comparison of Christianity with paganism — Incredible change — The theme of 
song — The transforming agent — Investment of a Massachusetts wheelwright— How 
to make eighteen hundred per cent, by a donation to missions — Death and life 
springing from the same Bay of Kealakekua— Sketches of Obookiah — Providential 
voyage to America, and adoption at Cornwall — Other links in the chain of Provi- 
dence — Adventures of Thomas Hopu — Hopes from the Cornwall school— Natural 
disappointment— The Heart of the Pacific in 1820 and 1850 — Blessedness of tho 
change. 

In order that we may survey in this Chapter more 
minutely an interesting portion of the Hawaiian Heart 
of the Pacific, I will take the reader upon my trail 
from Kailua, Hawaii, to Kealakekua, on the same great 
Island. The path runs, for six miles along the sea, 
through villages of cocoanut-palm groves, from which 
the bronzed inhabitants, with little else than the habil- 






ASPECTS OF NATURE AND ITS LESSONS. 35 

iments of nature, peeped and stared upon a stranger, 
as I came that way, with curious eyes. I passed two 
snug little bays that used to be favorite resorts of 
Kamehameha the Great, in one of which was his bath- 
ing-place, tabu to every one else, and the Tieiau and 
hous'e of his favorite war-god Kaili. 

At Kiauhou, the path turned inland two miles, up a 
rugged hill of lava, in ascending which, the beast I 
rode made as much ado as if he had been brought up 
on a Brussels carpet or an English lawn, instead of the 
hoof-hardening pastures of Kailua. The path was 
slightly worn by the bare feet of the natives, much as 
the stone toe of St. Peter at Rome is kissed smooth by 
the worshippers of baptized Jupiter Capitolinus. On both 
sides were heaps and depressions of rough scoria and 
slag, great boulders of lava, black broken masses, 
crumbling cylinders, and spheroidal volcanic stones, 
the surface of which had been fused, and in some 
places had peeled off like a crust or shell, while the 
centre of some of them was of a dark-blue color and 
compact texture, and did not appear to have been at 
all affected by the fire which had reduced the surface. 

Jammed into clefts of lava, where there seems not a 
particle of sand or earth, you may see there the splen- 
did pink-white caper, (capparis,) with its hundred sta- 
mens, and delicious *$or, and light-green leaves, lav- 
ishing alone its fragrance and beauty upon rough, 
unsightly rocks. Even so, perhaps Jeremy Taylor 
would say, have I seen beauty adorning the face of 
deformity, virtue flourishing amid vice, and the wealth 



36 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, 

of warm affections and generous natures spent unpaid 
upon selfish, sterile hearts. So, I would rather say, it 
is the way of benignant nature to show the affluence of 
her resources, to reveal the might and glory of a crea- 
tive, wonder-working God. 

" She has a world of ready wealth, 
Our minds and hearts to bless ; 
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, 
Truth breathed by cheerfulness." 

No one who has been through the barren parts of 
Hawaii, or East Maui, can fail to have noticed this 
beautiful shrub; how, as by elective affinity, it chooses 
those unwatered, desolate tracts of lava, where there is 
not a green thing else to sympathize with it, or be its 
rival. There have I often observed it cheerfully exhal- 
ing its odors and hues, not unheeded by God and his 
angels, though unnoticed of men. Even like a retir- 
ing, virtuous woman — 

" Wisely she shuns the broad ivay and the green, 
And with those few is eminently seen, 
That labor up the hill of heavenly truth. 
Her care is fixed, and zealously attends 
To fill her odorous lamp with deeds of light, 
And hope that reaps not shame." 

A half hour of such travel, %$ slow as it could be 
and yet be called motion, brought me in sight of sil- 
very kukuis and the oak-green bread-fruit tree, with its 
eight-lobed leaves and golden fruit. At half past ten 
I reached a beautiful table-land, where, by the lapse of 



MAN FEOM MAINE VS. ROMISH PRIEST. 37 

time and the action of frequent rains, the lava has be- 
come disintegrated, and covered over with a prolific 
soil. The sight of the plain of ocean, noiseless in the 
distance, whitened here and there by the sail of a fish- 
ing-canoe, and extending off in its azure glory, till it 
seemed to rise up into an eminence high as that I was 
riding upon, was very beautiful. 

I stopped a while to rest at the place of a man from 
Maine, who was discharged here from a ship in 1811, 
and entered into the service of Kamehameha, who 
gave him his lands. In the evening of his days he has 
become a member of the church. When under disci- 
pline, a few years ago, for intoxication, he was address- 
ed by a Romish priest at Kailua : " The missionaries 
have turned you out of the church for drinking, have 
they ?" " Yes," he replied. " I deserved it ; for I 
could not go to the table of the Lord defiled with 
sin." 

The Jesuit rejoined, "You have committed no crime. 
God is willing we should enjoy ourselves, and what is 
the harm of drinking a little brandy ? God will for- 
give you. These missionaries are keeping you in fet- 
ters and superstition. I wish to see you. at liberty and 
enjoy yourself. If you will only join my church, I 
will pledge my honor that you shall never be turned 
out." Disgusted with such a gross attempt to flatter 
and seduce him, the man retorted, somewhat warmly, 
" Yes ; and I suppose the devil would not turn me out 
of hell, if he got me there !" He is now restored, and 
is living in good standing with the native church. 



38 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Coffee is being extensively cultivated by this man 
and his son-in-law. The tree, laden with fruit and ruf- 
fled leaves, its branches proceeding from the trunk hor- 
izontally, and filled out to the end with red coffee-ber- 
ries, looking very much, when ripe, like the cranberry, 
is a very beautiful specimen of tropical vegetation, de- 
serving to be cultivated for its looks alone. The tree 
here is said to be from twenty months to three years 
in attaining its maturity. It will then bear, I am told, 
two crops a year for twenty years. It is usually cut 
off at the top when about five and a half or six feet 
high, and will then produce about a peck of berries at 
a time, or ten pounds of dried coffee annually, which 
sells here for two reals or more a pound. 

After a delay at this plantation of a couple of hours, 
I proceeded hither by a path shaded with ohias, bread- 
fruit, and kukuis. Long before reaching it, the mis- 
sionary establishment hove in sight, with its thatched 
roofs and whitened walls, and an air of taste and culti- 
vation giving just promise of hospitality, intelligence, 
and piety. My guide and baggage-carrier had reached 
here before, so that I found a room and entertainment 
ready, with a missionary's cordial welcome to it. 
Would that every Christian wayfarer could find where- 
e'er he wanders, for health or to do God's will, hospi- 
tality as grateful and cheering ! 

There is a passage in " Column's Christian Antiqui- 
ties," in regard to the hospitality of primitive Chris- 
tians, which I have often read with pleasure, and will 
quote here, because it is so happily paralleled in what 



PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN HOSPITALITY. 39 

I am now experiencing among missionaries : " The fol- 
lowers of Christ, how widely soever they were scattered 
throughout the world, were then united as one great 
family, and agreeing, as they did, in the happiness and 
spirit of concord, to regard any local varieties, of cus- 
tom as matters of indifference, kept up a constant and 
friendly correspondence with all the branches of the 
Church universal ; so that, whenever any of them went 
abroad, either on their own private affairs, or on mis- 
sions connected with the state and progress of religion, 
they were received with open arms by the Christians 
of the place as brethren. 

" Go under whatever name they might, and travel to 
remotest places, among people of foreign manners and 
an unknown tongue, the pilgrims of the faith were sure, 
wherever they met with a Christian, to find a friend, 
whose house would be thrown open for their reception, 
whose table would be spread for their entertainment, 
and who would welcome them with a warmer heart 
and a kindlier smile, than they were often met with by 
their kinsmen and acquaintances at home. They were 
treated by the family that received them as one of 
themselves, had their feet washed by the wife on their 
first arrival, and at their departure were anxiously and 
tenderly committed to the divine care, in a prayer by 
the master of the house." 

On the other side of this Bay of Kealakekua, and off 
to the south, is the celebrated old Puhonua or Hawaiian 
city of refuge, at Honaunau, the ancient residence of 
kings, where Kalaimoku, he that was afterwards called 



40 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

the Iron Cable of Hawaii, fled for refuge after the san- 
guinary battle that made Kamehameha the Great sov- 
ereign of the whole island. I say celebrated, because 
this and one of the same kind in Waipio, Kohala, are 
the only sanctuaries of the kind ever, known to have 
existed among pagans ; and this has been frequently 
spoken of by missionaries as a unique object among 
the ruins of Paganism, to be contemplated with unu- 
sual interest. 

When Ellis visited it in the year 1824, there was 
standing within it a house called the House of Keawe, 
which would seem to have been to Hawaii w^hat Iona 
w r as to Scotland — a sacred depository of the bones of 
departed kings and princes, probably first erected for 
the custody of his remains whose name it bore, a king 
that reigned in Hawaii about eight generations back. 
By pushing one of the boards across the doorway a 
little on one side, Mr. Ellis says they could look in 
and see many large images, some of wood very much 
carved, others of red feathers, with wide-distended 
mouths, large rows of sharks' teeth, and glaring pearl- 
shell eyes. They also saw several bundles apparently 
of human bones, cleaned, carefully tied up with cinet 
made of cocoanut fibres, and placed in different parts 
of the house, together with some rich shawls and 
other valuable articles, probably worn by those to 
whom the bones belonged, as the wearing apparel and 
other personal property of the chiefs is generally 
buried with them. 

On the outside of the inclosure there were rudely 






GRIM RELICS OF PAGANISM. 41 



carved male and female images of wood, some on low 
pedestals under the shade of an adjacent tree, others 
on high posts on the jutting rocks that overhung the 
edge of the water. " At the southeast end of the in- 
closed place twelve of them stood in grim array, 
forming a semicircle, as if perpetual guardians of the 
mighty dead reposing in the house adjoining. Once 
they had evidently been clothed, but now they ap- 
peared in the most indigent nakedness. A few tatter- 
ed shreds round the neck of one that stood at the left- 
hand side of the door, rotted by the rain, and bleach- 
ed by the sun, were all that remained of the numer- 
ous and gaudy ornaments with which their votaries 
had formerly arrayed them. 

" A large pile of broken calabashes and cocoanut- 
shells lay in the centre, and fragments of kapa, the 
accumulated offerings of former days, formed an un- 
sightly mound before each of the images. The horrid 
stare of these idols, the tattered garments upon some 
of them, and the heaps of rotten offerings before them, 
seemed no improper emblems of the system they were 
designed to support ; distinguished alike by its cruel- 
ty, folly, and wretchedness." 

The traveller at this day sees none of these hideous 
relics of the corpse of Paganism, that was then just slain, 
and lay rotting, unburied, like a carcass thrown to car- 
rion-birds. To visit here at that time, was like looking 
down into one of those wide pits of living death and 
festering decay, into which Defoe says they used to 
cast the victims of the great plague in London. It 



42 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

was, as it were, stepping into the very rank tomb of 
idolatry, where the horrid monster had been lately 
tumbled all naked and gory, weltering in his own 
blood and foulness, as he had long revelled in that of 
his murdered victims — 

" besmeared with blood 



Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears." 

There now remain only a low fence of posts, and the 
stone walls of the irregular parallelogram that consti- 
tuted the Place of Refuge. These are 715 feet long, 
4:04c feet wide, about 12 feet high, and 15 feet thick. 
Holes are still visible on the parapet or raised terrace, 
where large images formerly stood about four rods 
apart, through the whole extent. There are fragments 
of lava in these walls that must be of two or more tons 
weight each, six or eight feet above the ground, which 
it is difficult to imagine how Hawaiians could have 
raised (as they must) without machinery, by the mere 
force of the unassisted human hands. But the des- 
pots here of old knew how to use the bones and sinews 
of their subjects with great executive effect, in hauling 
heavy timber for their idols, and putting up immense 
heiaus, as well as to give their bodies a sacrifice to 

* The devils they adored for deities," 

whenever the priest* or their own caprice called for 
the Moloch offering. 



* If a temple was to be built, the people had the stones to collect 
for the walls, and the timber and posts to put up ; they had the thatch- 



FEAT OF AN HAWAIIAN GRACCHUS. 43 

Sometimes they made their lives so bitter with hard 
bondage, imposed such intolerable burdens upon the 
abject people, and bent the bow of their servile com- 
pliance so far that it suddenly snapped, with death to 
the tyrant that strained it. In the mountainous parts 
of Kan there is a steep, round hill, up which it is a 
tradition among the people that a chief once required 
his subjects to drag a huge log, which he was going 
to set up there for his idol, to overlook all the land 
and sea. They had succeeded, at intervals of time, in 
drawing it two-thirds of the way up, w^hen some Ha- 
waiian Gracchus, heading the people, and gaining 
them all over to his purpose, laid this plan to get rid 
of their task and task-master. He feigned himself ex- 
traordinarily zealous in forwarding the work, got all 
the people to man the lines, and then approached the 
chief, who sat looking on, with this request — that he 
would but put his shoulders once to the log from be- 



ing to do ; a levy for sustaining the service was made on tliem of hogs, 
cocoanuts, bananas, kapa, red fish, bundles of baked kalo, fowls, and 
other articles. The priest looked at the king, saying, " Let there be men 
for the god." The king consented. " Let there be a house for the god." 
The king consented. " Let there be land for the god." The king con- 
sented. Then the priest addressed the king again, " Let a hog be 
hanged up for the god ; let there be certain fish for the god ; the first 
fish for the god." The king consented. Then the priest proceeded, 
" Let the land of the priest be sacred, free from taxes ; let the house of 
the priest be sacred, no one wantonly entering it ; in short, let all that 
belongs to the priest be in safety." Thus the priest says to the king. 
The king and the priest were much alike, and they two united were the 
nation's main burden. — Ka Moolelo Hawaii, in Hawaiian Spectator, vol. 
II, p. 440. 



44 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



hind, and, at a given signal from himself, they would 
all strain themselves to the utmost, and at one pull 
run it up to its place. The purblind chief consented, 
and with a simultaneous joyful effort they started the 
log forward a few feet, and then suddenly let it go 
back, crushing with its whole length and weight the 
body of their oppressor, and thundering down the side 
of the mountain, as on the slide of the Alpnach, till it 
lodged in the level below, where they say a part of it 
may be seen to this day. 

But to return to the Puhonua* at Honaunau. 



* The Puhonuas were the Hawaiian Cities of Refuge, and afforded 
a most inviolable sanctuary to the guilty fugitive, who, when flying from 
the avenging spear, was so favored as to enter their precincts. This 
had several wide entrances, some on the side next the sea, the others 
facing the mountains. Hither the man-slayer, the man who had broken 
a tabu, the thief, and even the murderer, fled from his incensed pursuers, 
and was secure. To whomsoever he belonged, and from whatever part 
he came, he was equally certain of admittance, though liable to be pur- 
sued even to the gate of the inclosure. Happily for him, those gates 
were perpetually open ; and as soon as the fugitive had entered, he re- 
paired to the presence of the idol, and made a short ejaculatory ad- 
dress expressive of his obligations to him for reaching the place in 
safety. 

"Whenever war was proclaimed, and during the period of actual hos- 
tilities, a white flag was unfurled on the top of a tall spear, at each end 
of the inclosure, and until the conclusion of peace, it waved the symbol of 
hope to those who, vanquished in fight, might fly thither for protection. 
It was fixed a short distance from the walls on the outside, and to the 
spot on which this banner was unfurled the victorious warrior mio-ht 
chase his routed foes ; but here he must himself fall back. The priests 
and their adherents would immediately put to death any who should 
have the temerity to follow or molest those who were once within the 
pale of the pahu tabic; and, as they expressed it, under the shade or 
protection of the Spirit of Keawe, the tutelar deity of the place. 



A PAGAJST HOUSE OF REFUGE. 45 



Whether it was first instituted by priests, as a means 
of increasing their power by binding to their interests 
all who should owe safety to its protection ; or by some 
Hawaiian Alfred, in order to mitigate the cruelty of 
idolatry, and provide an offset to the sanguinary char- 
acter of their wars ; or whether it was derived, as some 
suggest, traditionally from the Israelitish cities of ref- 
uge, it is not easy to determine. However the institu- 
tion may have originated, the Place of Refuge itself is 
an interesting spot, which no visitor on this side of 
Hawaii will fail of going to see. 

The grim idols that received the man-slayer within 
their strangely-friendly pale, like a wolf turning his 
den into a sheep-fold, are gone. The high-priests of 
idolatry are all dead, and there are few surviving who 
can tell you any thing of the transactions that have 
taken place here. The Gospel of Christ precluding 
and extinguishing murder and war, supersedes the ne- 
cessity of this singularly humane feature of cruel Pa- 
ganism. It is almost too great a tax on the traveller's 



In one part of the inclosure, houses were formerly erected for the 
priests, and others for the refugees, who, after a certain period, or at the 
expiration of war, were dismissed by the priests, and returned unmo- 
lested to their dwellings and families ; no one venturing to injure those 
who, when they fled to the gods, had been by them protected. The 
Puhonua at Honaunau is very capacious, capable of containing a vast 
multitude of people. In time of war, the females, children, and old 
people of the neighboring district, were generally left within it, while 
the men went to battle. Here they awaited in safety the issue of the 
conflict, and were secure against surprise and destruction in the event 
of defeat. — Ellis's Missionary Tour through Hawaii, pp. 137, 138. 



46 LIFE m THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

credulity to ask him to believe that a people now so re- 
markably peaceable and gentle, among whom the safe- 
ty of human life and property is unparalleled anywhere 
on the face of the earth — that only one generation back 
they were the warlike, ferocious, infanticide race, sacri- 
ficing each other to their gods, which unquestionable 
facts make them to have been. 

The last human sacrifices are said to have been made 
at this place in 1818. One man was then sacrificed for 
putting on the malo (girdle) of a chief, one for eating a 
forbidden article of food, one for leaving a house that 
was tabu and entering one that was not, and a woman 
was put to death for going into the eating-house of her 
husband when intoxicated. On the authority of na- 
tives, former kings have immolated eighty victims at 
once, as in the days of Umi, whose blood-thirsty god, 
after one of his victories, kept calling from the clouds, 
Give, give, until the priest and himself were all that re- 
mained of his train. 

In the revolution so marvellously effected at these 
Islands, how remarkably is fulfilled that prediction of 
Holy Writ in the Prophecy of Zephaniah, The Lord 
will famish all the gods of the earth; and men shall 
worship him every one from his place, even all the 
isles of the heathen ! 

When the first band of missionaries landed at Ivai- 
lua, only fifteen miles from this Bay, in the spring of 
1820, just thirty-one years ago, the appearance of the 
natives was thus described by one of that heroic com- 
pany : — "A first sight of these wretched creatures was 



HEROISM OF THE FIRST MISSIONARIES. 47 

most overwhelming. Their naked figures and wild 
expression of countenance, their black hair streaming 
in the wind as they hurried the canoe over the water, 
with all the eager action and muscular power of sava- 
ges ; their rapid and unintelligible exclamations, and 
whole exhibition of uncivilized character, gave to them 
the appearance of being half-men and half-beast, and 
irresistibly pressed on our minds the query : ' Can they 
ie men ? Can they he women f Do they not for?n a 
link in creation connecting man with the hrutes P 
This, indeed, seemed to be the general impression. 
The officer heading the boat sent to the shore, on his 
return exclaimed, as he ascended the deck, 4 Well, if I 
never before saw brutes in shape of men, I have seen 
them this morning ;' and, addressing himself to some 
of our company, added, ' You can never live among 
such a people as this : we shall be obliged to take you 
back with us.' " 

Some of their number, says Mr. Bingham, with gush- 
ing tears, turned away from the spectacle. " Others, with 
firmer nerve, continued their gaze, but were ready to ex- 
claim, ' Can these be human beings ! How dark and 
comfortless their state of mind and heart ! How im- 
minent the danger to the immortal soul, shrouded in 
this deep pagan gloom ! Can such beings be civ- 
ilized? Can they be Christianized? Can we throw 
ourselves upon these rude shores, and take up our 
abode, for life, among such a people, for the pur- 
pose of training them for heaven?' 'Yes,' (they re- 
plied,) though faith had to struggle for the victory, 



48 LIFE IK THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

' these interrogations could all be answered in the af- 
firmative.' " 

These were the hopes of the pioneers themselves, 
sustained by secret refreshings from on high, and their 
life hid with Christ in God. But tell us now, ye men 
of the world, judging according to sense, what can 
these humane but Quixotic fanatics, as they were then 
deemed, what can they do with these untutored abjects 
of humanity in the remote heart of the Pacific ? What, 
think you, w^ill become of them, left all defenceless 
with these " brutes in the shape of men V Two hus- 
bands and wives from the realm of Christendom, un- 
backed by navies, unsupported by armies, planting 
themselves at the very heart of the most abject pagan- 
ism, among a horde of naked, squalid savages, already 
doubly brutified and debased below the level of ordi- 
nary savageism, by contamination from those moral ul- 
cers which had been bred by the riffraff of civilization 
— what shall they do there ? 

What means do they possess of transforming such mis- 
erable creatures into intelligent, conscientious, civilized 
and Christianized men and women ? Will they succeed in 
the experiment ? Or will they fail ? Will the labor and 
money expended upon them be thrown away to no pur- 
pose ? Or, going forth and weeping, bearing precious 
seed, will they come again with rejoicing, bringing their 
sheaves with them ? Let the harvest of 1850 answer, 
just one generation from the deposit of the first germ : — 
Twenty-two thousand men and women in the Chris- 
tian Church ; seventeen thousand pupils in Chris- 






MEANS OF THE MARVELLOUS CHANGE. 49 



tian schools ; and their contributions in the year 1849, 
while decimated by a wasting epidemic, to different 
religious objects, over Seven thousand Dollars ! 

Statesmen and philosophers, and socialist reformers, 
have started innumerable plans and theories for the 
improvement of our race and the reconstruction of so- 
ciety. But while we behold here a triumph of the 
Gospel over the direst combination of evil influences, 
what instance is there on record, in the annals of the 
human family, of a nation emerging from barbarism 
by any other means, and ascending to a moral position 
so eminent, in a single generation ? Is there any other 
agency known to man, but the " foolishness of preach- 
ing," capable of producing such results ? We say 
with certainty, ISTo, there is not. 

Had Napoleon obtained for France to the full his 
three wishes — " I desire Ships, Colonies, and Com- 
merce" — they would never have done for France, or for 
the countries colonized and traded with, what Chris- 
tianity has done for the Island Heart of the Pacific. 
The transformation here accomplished is little less than 
miraculous. 

Never, in the history of man, has so great a change 
been effected in so short a time. Where robbery and 
murder but a few years ago were practised as trades, 
and were events of every-day occurrence, life and prop- 
erty are now safer than under any long-established gov- 
ernment that can be named. Great as is the Hawaiian 
love of waiwai, (property,) and degraded and bad as 
they still are in many ways, yet such is now the force 

o 

O 



50 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

of law and the effect of the Gospel, that we might al- 
most say a man may travel afoot and by canoe, through 
the entire cluster of Islands, from Hawaii to Niihau, 
and with a net bag of shining dollars, without fear of 
molestation, unless it be from some desperate runaway 
foreigner, or a straggling Hawaiian sailor, hardened by 
his cruises abroad. If the same be true of any other 
land, we have yet to know it. To the Gospel, that has 
wrought the change, be all the glory. 

Christianity as the Cause, Commerce and Civilization 
as the consequents and handmaids, have done it all. 
"Without the missionary, carry to them all you could of 
modern art and culture, Hawaiians to this day would 
have lived and died in as besotted and gross barbarism 
as in the days of Cook. God would not be in all their 
thoughts ; and where God is not honored, civilization 
can neither be established, nor can it hold its own. It 
was because the glorious Gospel of the Son of God went 
first to this Island Heart of the Pacific in the year 
1820, that facts like the following turn up in the year 
1850. 

When the Sandwich Islands Mission was first start- 
ed, a young wheelwright in Massachusetts was called 
upon to contribute for it, and was told that his quota 
would be a dollar. He paid it, but with the feeling 
then that the dollar w r as thrown away. Within the 
present year this same wheelwright has received an 
order from those Islands for twenty pairs of cart-wheels 
and bodies, at ninety dollars a pair. 

Now we say with confidence, that without the Chris- 



COMMERCIAL VALUE OF CHRISTIANITY. 51 

tianity there* which this wheelwright's first dollar help- 
ed to establish, Commerce, with all its boasted facilities, 
could never have returned him the eighteen Tiimdred,. 
And the fact shows that, if men wish to invest their money 
where it will yield a dividend of eighteen hundred per 
cent., they had better put it into the treasury of Mis- 
sions. 

The religion of the Gospel is the only lever that can 
pry up the nations, and put them in the way of im- 
provement by commerce and civilization. Christianity 
is itself the most perfect civilizer hitherto discovered. 
John Williams very truly remarks, that, until the peo- 

* The money-value of Christianity at the Sandwich Islands is further 
shown in these two facts. A plantation on the Island of Maui, which a 
few years ago cost less than $5000, has recently (in 1851) been sold for 
$30,000 ; and a small store-lot at Honolulu, purchased of a chief about 
the time of the arrival of the missionaries for a mere trifle, has lately 
sold for $10,000. 

The gross domestic exports from the Islands in 1849 were valued at 
$103,743.74. In 1850, $380,323.63. Increase more than three-fold. 
Gross value "of imports in 1849, $729,730.44. In 1850, $1,053,053.70. 
Increase nearly two-fold. Number of vessels that visited the Islands in 
1849 : — Merchant vessels, 180 ; whalers, 274 ; vessels of war, 13 : total, 
467. In 1850: — Merchant vessels, 469; whalers, 237; vessels of war, 
14: total, 720. Value of supplies furnished these vessels in 1849, 
$81,340.00. In 1850, $140,000.00. Both the number of vessels and 
value of supplies nearly doubled in a year. The gross value of the sup- 
plies and exports for 1850 was $536,522.63. The exports of sugar in- 
creased from 653,820 lbs. in 1849, to 750,238 in 1850 ; of coffee, from 
28,231 lbs. in 1849, to 208,428 hi 1850 ; of Irish potatoes, fro u 858 bbls. 
in 1849, to 51,957 in 1850 ; of sweet potatoes, from 306 bbls. in 1849, to 
9,631 in 1850. 

The number of framed houses erected in Honolulu and vicinity during 
the year 1850 was three hundred and fifty. 



52 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

pie are brought under the influence of religion, they 
have no desire for the arts and usages of civilized life ; 
but that invariably creates it. While nations are under 
the power of their superstitions, they evince an inanity 
and torpor, from which no stimulus has proved power- 
ful enough to arouse them, but the new ideas and new 
principles imparted by Christianity. 

Was it that the savage Sandwich Islanders, in the 
days of Cook, did not discover God by the light of na- 
ture ? Were not the invisible things of him from the 
creation of the world clearly seen, being understood by 
the things that are made, even his eternal power and 
Godhead 1 

Knew they not God ? — They might have seen 

His beauty in the glorious green 

Of these fair Isles, and heard his voice 

In Nature's song, that bade Rejoice ! 

And witnessed in the soil they trod, 

Heaved up in coral wonder — God ! 

And marked his footsteps, bathed in wrath, 

On the volcano's fiery path. 

But all in vain ; — though every hill 

Its Maker knew ; each conscious rill, 

Leaping and sparkling, told of Him ; 

Morn's blush, and Evening's twilight dim, 

Proclaimed their God; though valleys rang, 

And the blue-waved Pacific sang ; 

And mountain, mead, and rock replied, 

" God! God!" — they heard not, raved, and died ! — 

God was not in all their thoughts until enthroned there 
by Christianity, brought in God's own providential 
time, and inaugurated in his own way in the Heart of 
the Pacific, so as best to answer the part to be fulfilled 



LINKS IN THE CHAIN OF PROVIDENCE. 53 

by these Islands in the conquest of the entire Island 
World of the Pacific, and of the great continents that 
lie upon it, for the Lord Jesus Christ. 

It is remarkable to notice how, in the providence of 
God, death to the first discoverer of the Sandwich Isl- 
ands, and spiritual life to their depraved aborigines, 
should both issue instrumentally from the bosom of this 
Bay of Kealakekua. This was the birth-place of Opu- 
kahaia, or Obookiah, and it was his embarkation at this 
port, accidental as it seemed, in 1809, on board an 
American trader, that forged the important link in the 
chain of events which was finally completed in 1819, 
just ten years after, in the embarkation of the mis- 
sionary band from Boston for Hawaii in the brig Thad- 
deus. 

On board the American trader there was a pious 
student of Yale College, who took much pains on the 
voyage to America to instruct the tawny Hawaiian 
sailor in the rudiments of knowledge. Along with his 
companion, Thomas Hopu, he was taken, on their arri- 
val, to New Haven, where the spark of missionary zeal 
may be said to have been first struck out, in the suc- 
cessful . efforts of some of the students there, to initiate 
these, youth into the elements of learning and Chris- 
tianity. " The friends of Christ in New England were 
led to look upon these sons of Paganism, thus provi- 
dentially brought to their doors, as having a claim for 
sympathy, care, and instruction in the Christian doc- 
trine; and, in attempting to meet this claim, they cher- 
ished the reasonable hope that suitable efforts to enlight- 



54: LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

en and convert them would tend to the evangelization 
of their idolatrous nation."* 

Aiming to secure the salvation of these strangers, 
and to make their agency available in disseminating 
the Gospel through heathen countries, the American 
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions establish- 
ed, in the year 1816, a trial school at Cornwall, Con- 
necticut, for whatsoever sons of unevangelized barba- 
rians they could gather together. Hereby was fanned 
the nascent flame of the Island Mission, which in due 
time was to irradiate the Heart of the Pacific with so 
wide a blaze. 

Let us pause and mark here the hand of God. "The 
time of blessed visitation," says Hollis Read, " had 
come for the isles of the sea. The English churches 
had already taken of the spoil of their idols, and were 
rejoicing and being enriched by their conquests. The 
American Zion must participate in the honor and profit 
of the war. Hence Henry Obookiah, an obscure boy, 
without father or mother, kindred or tie, to bind him to 
his native land, must be brought to our shores ; be re- 
moved from place to place, from institution to institu- 
tion, everywhere fanning into a flame the smoking flax 
of a missionary spirit, and giving it some definite direc- 
tion ; be made the occasion of rousing the slumbering 
energies of the Church on behalf of the heathen, and 
of kindling a spirit of prayer and benevolence in the 
hearts of God's people ; and finally, and principally, 

* Bingham's History of the Sandwich Islands, p. 57. 



SKETCHES OF THOMAS HOPU. 55 

his short and interesting career, and perhaps, more than 
all, his widely lamented death, must originate and ma- 
ture a scheme of missions to those Islands, the present 
aspect of which presents scenes of interest scarcely in- 
ferior to those of the apostolic age."* 

The companion of Opukahaia, Thomas Hopu, I met 
at Kailua. He was then fifty-two years of age, and 
was the sixth man living of those that came from 
Cornwall, all but one of whom were then said to be in 
good standing in the church, although they had all 
been wayward and unstable. 

Pie gave me a graphic account of sundry early ad- 
ventures of his when a sailor, before he went to Corn- 
wall : how he was the means of saving all on board 
the schooner he was in, when it was overset at sea, and 
the masts sprang out as she capsized. He dove "under 
and bit off a rope that held the boat ; then got it to 
the floating masts, and, freed of water, helped the crew 
into it, and rigged a sail out of the captain's shirt, 
through which, by a propitious Providence, they reach- 
ed, just alive, one of the West Indies. Though a wick- 
ed sailor, he said he often prayed then to God in the 
Lord's Prayer, which he had learned while first going 
to America with Plenry Opukahaia. 

Prom the West Indies he shipped again to the United 
States ; but it being the time of the last war with Eng- 
land, the brig was captured by a British cruiser not far 
from Newport, and carried into Tarpaulin Cove. 

* Hand of God in History, by Hollis Head. Hartford, 1849. P. ] 38. 



56 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

There, according to liis story, lie prevailed upon his 
shipmates to seize a Yankee sloop the British had 
brought in there. They succeeded in the enterprise, 
and returned with the sloop to the very port where it 
was owned. 

Reclaimed from the sea, and adopted by the benevo- 
lent, Hopu now lived for three years at Cornwall, 
where, although he never enlisted the sympathy and 
interest that were attracted to Obookiah, he was fitted 
for an important part, at first, as interpreter to the early 
missionaries, and a teacher in the schools. 

While at the Cornwall Mission School, it is related 
of him that he took a journey into the country with a 
friend, and spent an evening with a company who were 
much entertained by the questions proposed to him by 
an irreligious lawyer, and his amusing answers. At 
length Thomas said, in substance, " I am a poor hea- 
then boy. It is not strange that my blunders in Eng- 
lish should amuse you. But soon there will be a larger 
meeting than this. We shall all be there. They will 
ask us all one question, namely, 'Do you love the Lord 
Jesus Christ?' Now, sir, I think I can say, Yes. 
What will you say, sir ?" • • 

He ceased, and an oppressive stillness pervaded the 
room. At length it was broken by a proposition of the 
lawyer, that, as the evening was far spent, they should 
have a season of devotion, in which Thomas should 
lead. It was acceded to ; and Thomas, in his accus- 
tomed meek and affectionate manner, addressed the 
throne of grace. Soon he prayed for the lawyer in 



THE LAWYER AND SANDWICH ISLANDEK. 57 

person, alluding to his learning and talent, and be- 
sought that he might not be ignorant of the way of 
salvation through Christ. 

As he proceeded thus, the emotion of the lawyer rose 
above restraint. He sobbed aloud. The whole com- 
pany were affected, and sobs drowned the speaker's 
voice. When they separated for the night, and retired 
to their respective rooms, there was no rest to the law- 
yer, for the question of Thomas still rung in his ears, 
" What will you say, sir ?" Nor did its echo cease till 
the Spirit of God renewed his heart, and he truly found 
the Saviour. 

This same Thomas Hopu is now bronzed and wrin- 
kled beyond his years, and his lamp of life must soon 
go out. Though his conduct as a Christian since his 
return is said to have been by no means always exem- 
plary, nor his influence upon his countrymen what was 
to have been looked for from his advantages, we must 
lean to the side of charity in our judgments both of him 
and his fellows. 

Mr. Dibble very properly says, that too much had 
been expected of them. They were found exceedingly 
ignorant, and of course, therefore, were miserable inter- 
preters, and very poor teachers. They were often found 
teaching doctrines and precepts altogether opposed to 
the precepts of the Bible, and to the spirit of the Gos- 
pel. Those of the Cornwall youth especially, that came 
with the first reinforcement, were deemed a hindrance 
rather than a help. " To have visited a foreign land, 
to be better clad than their fellow-countrymen, to re- 

3* 



58 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

ceive some attention from chiefs and foreigners, were 
distinctions which their weak brains and undisciplined 
minds could not endure."* 

These youth having so far failed as interpreters, the 
missionaries were thrown upon their own skill and ap- 
plication for getting a mastery of the Hawaiian tongue. 
To this great work, therefore, of learning and reducing 
to writing a language barbarous and unknown, they ac- 
cordingly devoted themselves with a patient, yea, heroic 
assiduity. The marvellous result of their labors the 
universal world of humanity now knows and feels. 
How vast the difference between the Hawaii which 
they found in 1820, and the Hawaii which, under God, 
they have made in 1850 ! 

In the marvellous change thus effected at this long- 
lost Atlantis of the Pacific, we catch a glimpse of what 
may be realized the world over, when that prophe- 
cy of Holy "Writ shall be fulfilled which says that 
The earth shall ee filled with the knowledge of 
the glory of the lord as the waters cover the 
sea. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my 
holy mountain. 



* Dibble's History of the Sandwich Islands, p. 173. Lahainaluna 
Mission Press, 1848. 



HOSPITABLE PORT OF LAHALNA. 59 



CHAPTER III. 

LAHAINA AND ITS ENVIRONS ON THE ISLAND OF MAUI. 

Happy, oh ! happy he, who not affecting 
The endless toils attending worldly cares, 
"With mind reposed, all discontent rejecting, 
In steady pace his way to heaven prepares ; 
Deeming his life a scene, the world a stage, 
Whereon he acts his useful pilgrimage. 

Anon. 

Good-bye to Hawaii — Grateful reminiscences — The continental character of mission- 
aries — Portraiture of a good priest — Run to Maui by whale-ship — Facilities for re- 
cruiting at Lahaina— Seamen's chaplain — Gratuitous services of missionaries — Sailors 
always careless when not cared for— Winding up of a liberty-day at Lahaina, in the 
season of ships — An honorable pre-eminence — Hawaiians a surf-playing — Sea-bathing 
a national passion — Array of arguments for the people supporting their own minis- 
ters — Peculiar advantages at Lahaina — The Hawaiian democracy — Remarkable run- 
ning out of the race of rulers — Precious dust in God's acre — Character and influence 
of the high chief Hoapili — A striking anecdote — Vistas of prophecy opened — Ten- 
dency of things — Cheering progress. 

Turn we now, in prosecuting this survey of the moral 
Heart of the Pacific, to another portion of the Hawaiian 
group. We pay a reluctant farewell to the hospitable 
Island of Hawaii, in whose missionary families, churches, 
and schools, as portrayed in " The Island World of the 
Pacific," I find myself to have become more deeply in- 
terested than I could have believed. The friendships 
of studious years have been renewed. New ones, that 
will be ever cherished and fragrant, have been formed. 
The good fruits of the Gospel, and the benign results of 
faithful missionary labor, have been observed; and a 



60 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

debt incurred of that kind which, while it cannot be 
cancelled from the mint, a debtor loves to be paying, 
and a creditor to be receiving from the mental mine of 
genuine affection, good wishes, and prayers. 

It is that kind of obligation which a truly hospitable 
and good man likes to have others under to himself, 
and it is the only debt which does not worry, and which 
he is willing to be burdened with himself, as answering 
the apostolic injunction, To owe no man any thing, hut 
to love one another. It is a commodity which it were 
happy indeed if all Christians lived so much within 
their means, and with such true Christian simplicity 
and prudence, as to be able to pay all their debts in. 
The pressure of the times would be little felt if a plenty 
of that were in circulation, and if discounts were oftener 
made between man and man in that genuine currency. 
Its quality, like that of mercy, is not strained, 

Both blessing him that gives and him that takes. 

It is of the kind words, attentions, hospitality, and 
help which love dictates between friend and friend, 
and from his host to the traveller, and which humanity 
calls for from the rich and prospered in society to the 
unfortunate and needy, that our American poet Dana 
says, 

They make not poor : 
They'll come again full-laden to your door. 

Lord Bacon, too, has beautifully said, If a man be gra- 
cious to strangers, it shows that he is a citizen of the 
world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other 



A TRIBUTE TO AMERICAN MISSIONARIES. 61 

lands, but a continent .that joins them. The friends 
with whom I have been sojourning, are eminently conti- 
nental in their make and their manners. With the great 
Continent of Humanity, and every member of it, they 
are closely allied, and nothing human is foreign to them. 
Though their range be but an island, their sympathies 
embrace the world ; and the sweep of their prayers 
and their charities is as wide as that of the glorious 
ocean that laves their shores. 

A man that lives to do good, (the only life worth 
living,) may think himself well off to have his lot cast 
among the missionary band of Hawaii. Assured of a 
steady living, and delivered from so much that is arti- 
ficial and hollow in society, they have only to devote 
themselves to their families and to their proper mis- 
sionary w T ork. Theirs is not the bread of idleness. And 
if they labor hard, and have some discouragements and 
trials, not easily appreciated by men that live in Amer- 
ica, they have the solace, too, that their toil is not un- 
blessed, and that the sympathy and prayers of many 
are with them. Some of them realize to a rare degree 
Bishop Ken's portraiture of " A Good Priest :" 

Give me the Priest these graces shall possess : — 

Of an ambassador the just address ; 

A father's tenderness, a shepherd's care, 

A leader's courage, which the cross can bear ; 

A ruler's awe, a watchman's wakeful eye, 

A pilot's skill, the helm in storms to ply ; 

A fisher's patience, and a laborer's toil, 

A guide's dexterity to disembroil ; 

A prophet's inspiration from above, 

A teacher's knowledge, and a Saviour's love. 



62 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



They are a united and affectionate body, that have em- 
inently the confidence and love one of another, and 
they have the confidence and love of the Hawaiians to 
the utmost. May it be so always, and may every 
fresh accession to their forces be an accession of execu- 
tive and moral strength ! May peace be on them and 
mercy, and upon the Israel of God of which they have 
the charge ! Peace he within Tier walls. May they 
prosper that love thee. For my brethren and compan- 
ions'* sake I will now say, Peace be within you. 

The disability of bodily indisposition prevented my 
making the tour of Hilo and Puna with the pastor, 
Rev. Mr. Coan, and afterwards going across Mauna Kea 
to "Waimea, the station occupied by Rev. Lorenzo 
Lyons. I wished, also, to be near at hand to this port 
in the shipping season, in order to take advantage of any 
good opportunity that might occur for America. Taking 
passage, therefore, in a whale-ship that touched at Hilo 
for supplies, I am here, after an easy run of two days. 

The roadstead of Lahaina, as usual in spring and 
fall, is anchored in all over by large whale-ships, that 
have come in from the different cruising-grounds of the 
Pacific to recruit, where supplies of all kinds can be 
obtained on more advantageous terms, and with less 
detriment to the men, than at any other place in this 
ocean. It has been visited the last two seasons, fall 
and spring, by about four hundred ships, that spend on 
an average, at a very moderate estimate, three hundred 
dollars each, making the sum-total of $120,000 yearly 
disbursements at this port. The estimated value of the 



STATISTICS OF LAHAINA WHAJLE-SHIPS. 63 

whale-ships and cargoes entered at Lahaina and Hono- 
lulu, between 1844 and 1845, was $17,733,411 ; of dis- 
bursements there, $150,000. 

The supplies furnished by the natives are goats, hogs, 
poultry, fruit, and vegetables, especially Irish potatoes, 
for which they get money and cloth, or other articles 
of exchange. Fresh, beef, also, is supplied by foreign- 
ers. Other supplies, as of salt provisions, bread, cord- 
age, and ship-chandlery in general, are furnished almost 
exclusively by one American house, that take bills 
drawn upon ship-owners in America and Europe, at a 
rate of twenty per cent, for exchange. 

The concurrence here of such large whaling fleets 
makes Lahaina a most desirable place of labor for a 
seamen's chaplain. Estimating twenty-five seamen 
only to a ship, the port will be visited by ten thousand 
annually : not, indeed, ten thousand different seamen, 
but that number in two different times. 

From the first year, 1823, in which this was made a 
missionary station, to the present time, more or less of 
a chaplain's work has been done for them by the resi- 
dent missionaries. Until he left, in 1825, it was Mr. 
Stewart's special department ; in whose time were per- 
petrated the atrocious outrages upon government and 
the mission by disappointed sailors and their infamous 
captains. 

Rev. Mr. Spalding, the lamented associate of Mr. 
Richards, labored some years after among them with 
great acceptableness. On his failure, the work fell 
upon Mr. Baldwin, who had at the same time the 



64: LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

pastoral care of the church in the absence of Mr. Rich- 
ards, and the medical department for Maui. A build- 
ing has been erected, and an upper room finished for a 
chapel, by the contributions of shipmasters and for- 
eigners at Lahaina. 

During one year, the Rev. Lorrin Andrews, for some 
years a missionary of the American Board, now in the 
employ of government, was engaged by the residents 
here to supply the desk. Two hundred and forty dol- 
lars were contributed by shipmasters and residents for 
his support. He labored, however, only on the Sab- 
bath, and preached once the same clay in a school-house 
to a little congregation of natives, in a remote part of 
Lahaina. 

A man was needed to labor daily among the resi- 
dents and seamen, who might come into personal 
rencontre, and employ what Dr. Beecher used to call 
the short-sword and dagger of personal conversation 
and Tract-giving. Through the providence of the 
American Seamen's Friend Society, such a laborer is 
now supplied in the person of Rev. Mr. Taylor, w^ho 
has been stationed here since the year 1848 as the 
local seamen's chaplain. It will be in his power, 
through God's blessing, to preclude much sin and suf- 
fering on the part of those otherwise unfriended sea- 
men, who, having no man to care for their souls, are 
likely to care little for themselves, except how they 
may secure the pleasures of sin for a season. 

It was painful to go out among them here about sun- 
down, when their liberty expires, and, drunk or sober, 



HUMILIATING SCENES AT LAHAINA. 65 

they must be off to their ships, or into the fort. Liquor 
and lust had by that time done their best to inflame 
many of them, and your ears would be shocked by 
ribald oaths, and the language of lewdness, caught up 
and repeated by native boys ; and you would see some 
reeling to and fro at their wit's end, and hustled along 
by some less drunken comrade; and others without 
shame, caressed and hung upon by native girls, who 
flock here in the ship season, from other parts, to get 
the ready wages of sin. The populace of both sexes 
were out to see what was a-going, and to catch the con- 
tagion and cant of vice. It was a scene of vileness, 
disgust, and abomination, which no virtuous man, if 
possible, would see but once. 

You seemed to behold busy devils scouting about 
one of the breathing-holes of hell, running into the 
drunken herd, and chuckling with Satanic glee over 
the human victims w^hich they were making ten-fold 
more the children of hell than themselves. It was a 
sight to make a missionary weep, and any foreigner in 
whom virtue and shame have not become extinct, 

To blush, 
And hang his head to think himself a man ; 

a countryman, perhaps, of those who were making 
themselves and the recent heathen so vile. 

It ought to be added to this picture now, that, just 
after my visit at Lahaina, the sale of ardent spirits 
was prevented, and a great deal of mischief and vice 



66 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

stopped. The only license for its sale (which govern- 
ment deemed itself under the humiliating obligation to 
grant in consideration of the forced French treaty) was 
bid off at auction to a temperance man, with the tacit 
understanding that he should not be a loser, for the sum 
of $1500. In a riot just before, and a fight of the sea- 
men with the native constables, the rioters for a tima 
held the town, and it was found absolutely necessary 
for the safety of life and limb, and to preclude similar 
or worse scenes of riot and noise, that the one great 
mischief-breeder should be bound and rendered impo- 
tent. This port and Hilo are now probably the only 
two places in all the Pacific Ocean frequented by 
ships, where a sailor cannot get drunk. May the hon- 
orable difference never be lost through any fault of 
theirs ! 

It is highly amusing to a stranger to go out into the 
south part of this town, some day when the sea is roll- 
ing in heavily over the reef, and to observe there the ev- 
olutions and rapid career of a company of surf-players. 
The sport is so attractive and full of wild excitement 
to Hawaiians, and withal so healthful, that I cannot 
but hope it will be many years before civilization shall 
look it out of countenance, or make it disreputable to 
indulge in this manly, though it be dangerous, exer- 
cise. 

Many a man from abroad who has witnessed this 
exhilarating play, has no doubt inly wished that he 
were free and able to share in it himself. For my 



DIVERSIONS WITH THE SURF-BOARD. 67 

part, I should like nothing better, if I could do it, than 
to get balanced on a board just before a great rushing 
wave, and so be hurried in half or quarter of a mile 
landward with the speed of a race-horse, all the time 
enveloped in foam and spray, but without letting the 
roller break and tumble over my head. 

In this consists the strength of muscle and sleight-of- 
hand, to keep the head and shoulders just ahead and 
clear of the great crested wall that is every moment 
impending over one, and threatening to bury the bold 
surf-rider in its watery ruin. The natives do this with 
admirable intrepidity and skill, riding in, as it were, 
upon the neck and mane of their furious charger ; 
and when you look to see them, their swift race 
run, dashed upon the rocks or sand, behold, they 
have slipped under the belly of the wave they rode, 
and are away outside, waiting for a cruise upon an- 
other. 

Both men and women, girls and boys, have their 
times for this diversion. Even the huge Premier 
(Auhea) has been known to commit her bulky person 
to a surf-board ; and the chiefs generally, when they 
visit Lahaina, take a turn or two at this invigorating 
c sport wdth billows and board. For a more accurate 
idea of it than can be conveyed by any description, 
the reader is referred to the engraving. 

I have no doubt it would run away with dyspepsia 
from many a bather at Eockaway or Easthampton, if 
they would learn, and dare to use a surf-board on those 
great Atlantic rollers, as the Hawaiians do on the 



68 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

waves of the Pacific. But there is wanting on the 
Atlantic sea-board that delicious, bland temperature 
of the water, which within the tropics, while it 
makes sea-bathing equally a tonic, renders it always 
safe. 

The missionaries at these Islands, and foreigners 
generally, are greatly at fault in that they do not avail 
themselves more of this easy and unequalled means of 
retaining health, or of restoring it when enfeebled. 
Bathing in fresh water, in a close bath-house, is not to 
be compared to it as an invigorating and remedial 
agent ; and it is unwise, not to say criminal, in such a 
climate, to neglect so natural a way of preserving 
health, as washing and swimming in the sea. In those 
who live close to the water, and on the leeward side 
of the Islands, it is the more inexcusable, for it could 
be enjoyed without exposure in the dewless evenings ; 
or in some places, a small house might be built on 
stone abutments over the water, and facilities so con- 
trived that both sexes could enjoy this great luxury of 
a life within the tropics. 

But we come back to Lahaina, to speak of a charm- 
ing grove of young cocoanut-trees in the northwestern 
part of the town, planted by the excellent chief Hoa- 
pili, or Hoapiliwahine. They are not the tall,' lank, 
ghostly-looking things which the full-grown tree is, that 
becomes at these Islands, from the places in which you 
most often see it, a synonym of desolation and sterility, 
but a luxuriant, youthful growth, more beautiful than 



INDIGNITIES OFFERED TO TREES. 69 

any thing in the form of woods that I have seen since 
leaving America. 

Six or seven years ago there was a fine grove of large 
green Kou-trees in the opposite part of the town, near 
where the King lives, covering an acre and a half or 
two acres, and so ancient and shady as to afford ample 
covering for all the canoes in Lahaina, and all the peo- 
ple too. But before any one knew it, and not until it 
was too late to remonstrate against such a piece of sav- 
ageism, the King took a freak to have them all cut 
down to make into bowls, and spittoons, and pounding- 
boards for Tcalo. Could the outraged trees have wept 
like the sacred grove in the iEnead, they would have 
dropped tears of blood at the indignity. 

So, on the island of Molokai, there was a fine forest 
of Kamani-trees, the only ones at the Islands. It is a 
tree of slow growth, and of great value for its beauti- 
ful wood. But the chiefs a few years ago had them all 
mercilessly cut down, without any care to propagate 
young ones, happening to want the timber to repair 
some vessels. It was a fair specimen of ordinary bar- 
barism : how unlike the wisdom of Kamehameha the 
Great, who, when birds were caught for him to pluck 
certain feathers for his Zeis and JcahiZis, would not let 
them be killed, but set loose again, to give feathers, he 
said, to his sons. And when they cut young sticks of 
sandal-wood, he remonstrated with them, and said, " Is 
it, indeed, that you do not know my sons ? To them 
the young sandal-wood belongs." 

A sure sign of thrift and civilization, which I have 



70 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



seen a very few times in Hawaiians, is the planting of 
trees. Ask them why they don't do it more in a land 
where shade is such a blessing, and they will answer, 
it will do them no good; they would never enjoy them ; 
it is a mea lapuwale for them. But such improvidence 
is not at all to be wondered at, when we consider the 
uncertain tenure upon which they have hitherto held 
their lands. Any improvements made by a common 
man would have been only a premium to covetousness 
and injustice on the part of his chief, and would be 
likely to insure the alienation of property whose en- 
hanced value made it a JSTaboth's vineyard to some 
Hawaiian Ahab. 

The planting of trees anywhere indicates the posses- 
sion of a freehold, and the beginning of a prosperous 
and sound state, in which the rights of property are 
respected, and justice is rendered between man and 
man. It is what Washington Irving, speaking of the 
English fondness for trees, calls " the heroic line of 
husbandry, worthy of liberal, free-born, and aspiring 
men. He who plants an oak looks forward to future 
ages, and plants for posterity. He cannot expect to sit 
in its shade, nor enjoy its shelter ; but he exults in the 
idea that the acorn he has buried in the earth shall grow 
up into a lofty pile, and shall keep on flourishing, and 
increasing, and benefiting mankind, long after he shall 
have ceased to tread his paternal hills." 

The laws framed within three or four years nominally 
secure the right of property to Hawaiians ; but in their 
administration justice was far from being even, espe- 



CHARACTER OF THE FUTURE RACE. 71 

cially on the Island of Hawaii, under the management 
of Governor Adams, who was averse to quitting the 
ancient regime, or waiving any of the privileges of the 
chiefs. But liberty and law are everywhere gaining 
force, and a revolution is in progress which will insure 
good government and equal rights, if the people only 
survive to enjoy them. The philanthropist and Chris- 
tian cannot help ardently desiring it, and deprecating 
as most melancholy the decay of the race, just as it 
might be beginning to enjoy the liberty and all the be- 
nign ameliorations of the Gospel. 

But if, in the all-wise providence of God, the event 
be contrary to what we naturally . desire, they who 
have been laboring sincerely to save the nation will 
not lose their reward. They are laying the foundations 
for many generations, and the good of their labors 
shall redound for ages. Their reward is with them, 
and their work before them. The church they have 
planted shall continue so long as the sun and moon en- 
dure, throughout all generations. The Lord shall have 
here a seed to serve him to the end of time. 

And though ths nation's blood run out, and there be 
left a mongrel race of self-glorifying Anglo-Americans 
- and other foreigners, that like the Jews of Nehemiah's 
dav, " married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of 
Moab, and their children spake half in the speech of 
Ashdod," yet it shall be not less a people to serve God, 
to reap the benefit of, and to be moulded by, the institu- 
tions of the Gospel planted now. Meanwhile, although 
the Ilawaiians melt away, and it be sad to see a nation 



72 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

dying out, we will take the consolation given by the 
chorus in Milton's Samson Agonistes — 

All is best, though we oft doubt, 

What the unsearchable dispose 
Of highest wisdom brings about, 

And ever best found in its close. 

Lahaina is one of those places which you like much 
better as you approach or recede from it, than when 
you are actually in it. A little way off it seems 
sweetly embosomed in bread-fruit trees, and all fresh 
and lovely with sunshine and verdure, calmly inclosed 
seaward within a fence of foam, made by the sea break- 
ing upon the coral reef. Ride over the rollers in a 
whale-boat or native canoe, get to the sun-burnt, dusty 
land, walk up a few rods, perhaps with white panta- 
loons, to the mission-houses, and make acquaintance on 
the way to your heart's content with Lahaina dust and 
caloric, and you will probably by that time be saying 
to yourself — 

'Twas distance lent enchantment to the view. 

However, dirt, fleas, mosquitoes, and heat to the 
contrary notwithstanding, Lahaina has so salubrious 
and dry a climate, and advantages for healthful sea- 
bathing all the year round, that one who is any thing 
of an invalid likes to be there, or, what is better, two 
miles above, at the seminary of Lahainaluna. It is 
said that the greatest observed elevation of the mer- 
cury here- in Fahrenheit's thermometer, for ten years, 
was 86 deg. ; the lowest, 54 deg. The wind is the alter- 



HOW TO MEET A STORM OF DUST. 73 

nating land and sea breeze. A steep mountainous ridge 
in the rear entirely breaks off the trades, and, receiving 
all their rain, carries it distilled below in a fertilizing 
stream that irrigates all the valley and vega of Lahaina, 
and is spent before it reaches the sea. 

Two or three times in a year the trades whirl over 
the mountain, and then woe to the man's eyes that are 
so luckless as to be found in it. From hill and plain 
there are caught up great, suffocating volumes of red 
dust, that envelop all the town, and even roll off to 
ships in the roadstead, and redden the sea. Closed 
doors and windows are as mere lattice-work for it. It 
traverses stone walls and adobes, human lungs and ears, 
and I know not but livers, and permeates every thing. 
If a man's eyes only escape being filled and getting the 
ophthalmia, he is well off. But the blow over, all is 
well again. The sea or the translucent Lahainaluna 
water is there to wash in, and, merrily making your ab- 
lutions within and without, you'll sing — 

Cold water for me, cold water for me 1 
But wine for the tremulous debauchee ! 

The mission-house here, being the first built, and 
(until his embassy abroad) occupied by Mr. Richards, 
and the one now occupied by Mr. Baldwin, are situated 
in the very busiest and dirtiest part of the town. Prob- 
ably it was a retired spot, surrounded by kalo patches, 
when selected and given by Keopuolani, in 1824. But 
the concourse of business and ships have so increased 

both the population and noise, that the place has be- 

4 



74 LIFE m THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

come a most undesirable one for residence, and espe- 
cially for rearing children. Juvenal's caution can hard- 
ly be kept there : 

Nil dictu foedum, visu que haec limina tangat 

Intra quae puer est — 

Maxima debetur puero reverential 

Somewhat more than a quarter of a mile to the south- 
east, within a verdant and shaded inclosure, is the 
large galleried Stone Church and burying-ground. It 
is the first stone meeting-house built at the Islands, and 
does credit to its architect, the Kev. Mr. Eichards. 
When he found its steeple to have settled away a little 
from the main body of the house, so as to threaten a 
fall, he cleverly made it fast by iron clamps and chains. 
It will accommodate two thousand people. 

The Gospel preached there has been sometimes quick 
and powerful, and full of edification and life to good 
old chiefs and common kanakas. The veteran Hoapili, 
when unable to sit up but a few minutes, had himself 
carried there only ten days before his death in 1840, to 
be once more blessed by the ordinances of God's house. 
No serious blot, say the missionaries, is known to have 
attached to the Christian character of this chief while 
living, and now that he is gone, his memory is sweet. 
Those who saw and conversed with him while he was 
waiting the summons of death, were much affected with 



* Let nothing foul to eye or ear be ever seen or heard about those 
doors which inclose your boy. To eager and imitating childhood we 
owe a scrupulous reverence and care. 



DEATH AND BURIAL OF HOAPILI. 75 

his deportment. He was wakeful and deeply interested 
in the prospect of the change that awaited him, and he 
longed to depart and be with Christ. 

" He seemed to be emptied of self, to be lowly in his 
own eyes, and to cast himself with much confidence on 
Christ. The word of God and prayer were his delight, 
and from these he sought solace till he was insensible 
to every thing earthly. His last interview with the 
king was said to have been tender and affecting in the 
extreme. After conversing with him in a dignified 
manner for a time, alluding to his own dependence, 
and beseeching the king to abandon his sins, and be- 
come a good man, he became much affected, laid his 
head on the lap of the king, and burst into a flood 
of tears. As he lay dying, he gave a charge concern- 
ing his bones, strictly forbidding wailing on the occa- 
sion of his death, and desiring that his grave might 
be an humble one near the sleeping-place of Mr. 
McDonald, a departed missionary." 

There they lie in the burying-ground, hard by to- 
gether, the missionary teacher and the converted hea- 
then chief, with a little group of baptized missionaries' 
children, whom Christ has taken from the care of pa- 
rents to be safe with himself. 

" God their Redeemer lives, 
And ever from the skies 
Looks down and watches all their dust, 
Till he shall bid it rise." 

The good old chief then will come forth in his new 
attire, with the vigor of immortal youth, wondering at 



LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



the grace of a Saviour to a dark-minded savage ; and, 
methinks, it will be with no common energy that he 
w T ill lead a file of ransomed Hawaiians in that blest 
song, " Worthy is the Lamb :" 

Loud as from numbers without number, 
Sweet as from blest voices uttering joy ! 

How beautiful is that poem by Longfellow called 
God's- Acre, which I can never enter a Christian bury- 
ing-ground without calling to mind ! 

I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls 
The burial-ground God's-Acre ! It is just ; 

It consecrates each grave within its walls, 

And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust. 

God's-Acre ! Yes, that blessed name imparts 
Comfort to those who in the grave have sown 

The seed that they had garnered in their hearts, 
Their bread of life, alas ! no more their own. 

Into its furrows shall we all be cast, 

In the sure faith that we shall rise again 

At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast 
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain. 

Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom, 
In the fair gardens of that second birth ; 

And each bright blossom mingle its perfume 

With that of flowers which never bloomed on earth. 

With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod, 
And spread the furrow for the seed we sow : 

This is the field and Acre of our God ; 

This is the place where human harvests grow ! 

It was of this remarkable Hawaiian chief, now peace- 
fully sleeping in God's-Acre at Lahaina, that a story is 
told which well illustrates his native strength of mind. 



HIS WAY OF PROVING THE EARTH ROUND. 7T 

Upon the publication by the missionaries of a little 
treatise on the true principles of geography and astron- 
omy, surprise and doubt were expressed by some, and 
they disputed before Hoapili about the figure of the 
earth. " Stop," said the old chief; " do not be so quick 
with your objections to the foreign theory. Let us look 
at it. This is what I have always seen. When I have 
been far out at sea on fishing excursions, I at first lost 
sight of the beach, then of the houses and trees, then of 
the hills, and last of the high mountains. So when I 
returned, the first objects which I saw were the high 
mountains, then the hills, then the trees and houses, 
and, last of all, the beach. I think, therefore, that these 
foreigners are right, and that the earth is round." 

The influence of Hoapili and Hoapili wahine his wife 
was valuable and excellent many ways. Among other 
things, they taught the people at Lahaina to be liberal 
to their ministers, and it should be said to their praise, 
that they are more than usually attentive at this station, 
in bringing poultry, fruits, vegetables, dried fish, &c, as 
marks of their aloha (love) both to Christ and their wor- 
thy pastor. This liberal spirit can be easily encouraged 
and turned to good account, so as entirely to support 
among them the institutions of the Gospel. 

The Church at this station, by the annual report for 
1849, numbers 637 members — ordinary attendance on 
the Sabbath at the meeting-house, twelve or thirteen 
hundred. Some of them are, for Hawaiians, men of con- 
siderable substance ; are owners of horses and cattle, 
make molasses from the sugar-cane, have lands on which 



<8 LIFE m THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



they raise potatoes for ships, besides kalo-patches that 
furnish their own food, and are officers of government. 

Almost the same may be said of their pecuniary abil- 
ity at Honolulu, and particulars might be given of the 
ways in which Hawaiians at these ports can now get 
money, and of the ease with which much of it can be 
applied to support the preachers of the Gospel. They 
make out a strong case why the missionaries at these 
places, the two central stations first taken, and from 
which there is constantly emanating a powerful influ- 
ence throughout the entire group, should have been 
supported by the people for two or three years past ;* 
and the late action of the American Board in 1849, is 
altogether wise and feasible, that proposes to the Sand- 
wich Islands Mission to become independent of the 
home treasury, and to throw itself upon the people for 
support. 

The readiness of the missionaries to accede to this 
proposition and to make the experiment of self-support, 
trusting under God to the generosity of the people, is 
worthy of all praise, as it is in keeping with the charac- 
ter they have won before all the world for ability, zeal, 
and devotion. The general success of this experiment 
can hardly be doubted, though it may fail at some par- 
ticular stations for reasons purely local. 

We do not think the objection valid, that you cannot 



* The whole amount of contributions for all benevolent and religious 
purposes, in the two Native Churches of Honolulu for the year 1850, 
is $1*733.92. 



HOW MISSIONARIES SHOULD BE SUPPORTED. 79 

expect the people to give seven or eight times as much 
to their teacher as it takes to support one of their own 
families. Hawaiians know the wants of foreigners are 
more than theirs, are glad to have it so, and would be 
unwilling that their teachers should live like them- 
selves. And as to any natural scruples at receiving 
from people so poor, and that live so miserably desti- 
tute of the comforts of civilized life, we think they had 
better be set over against the contributions of many at 
home, who give out of the abundance of their joy and 
their deep poverty r , by rigid economy, and the voluntary 
deprivation of luxuries which are missed far more than 
the poor Hawaiians' hapaha, or hajpalua, or dollar 
would be, if given to his minister. 

Ships put in circulation here a good deal of money, 
spent by sailors, and in lieu of fresh supplies. Many of 
the reals, and half-dollars, and dollars so distributed, 
fall into the hands of common church members, who 
being supplied, for the most part, otherwise with food, 
and having as yet few artificial wants, might as well as 
not bestow many of them upon their teacher. 

In this connection, we cannot help saying, that we 
think it would be far better for American missionaries 
everywhere to be allowed to hold property, and honor- 
ably help themselves, and to be in every respect upon 
the same footing as ministers at home;, and that they 
should be enjoined to urge the people to whom they 
preach to contribute all in their power for their support. 
We think there would in this way be more economy, 
and more manliness and proper independence both in 



80 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

the missionary ministers and their families, and in the 
churches. The dangers of undue acquisitiveness, neg- 
lect of missionary work, and worldly-mindedness might 
be guarded against. Missions generally, certainly those 
that are so far advanced as the Sandwich Islands Mis- 
sion, would thus cost the Board less, and do the people 
more good, by stimulating them early to maintain their 
own religious institutions. This always leaning upon 
America, David Malo says, is not good. If America 
should give way, we should break our backs. We had 
better learn early to stand alone. 

It is upon the Hawaiian democracy mainly that the 
support of the Church at these Islands must henceforth 
depend ; for with the decease of Hoapili and Kapiolani 
the race of godly chiefs seems to have become extinct. 
Few are surviving that can boast of chiefs' blood. Ho- 
apili died without issue. The governor of Hawaii dies 
childless. The king and the premier (Auhea) have no 
offspring ; nor is there a high-chief living that has a lin- 
eal heir. Most of the chief boys and girls in school at 
Honolulu are half-breeds, or adopted heirs, and the chil- 
dren of the former premier Kinau. 

It is a remarkable fact, and would seem to argue 
somewhat of Providence and destiny, that so large a 
body of rulers by birthright should so soon give out. 
Their rapid extinction is even more manifest and sig- 
nificant than that of the people. Perhaps in the mys- 
terious counsels of the Most High, their days are num- 
bered, and the end of their existence as a nation is 
near. If it prove to be so, it will remain to be re- 




VISIONS OF THE FUTURE MILLENNIUM. 81 

arked how the date of their depopulation and decay, like 
at of all the other islanders of the Pacific, and the tribes 
of North and South America, synchronizes with their 
discovery and the offer made them of the Gospel. 

Through their acceptance of the latter, although they 
now become extinct, the prophecy will be made good, 
that in him {Christ) shall all nations of the earth he 
Messed. Redeemed unto God out of every kindred, and 
tongue, and people, and tirihe, and nation, there shall 
be some to sing, " Thou, Lord, art worthy." With 
thanks and everlasting joy the ransomed Hawaiian, the 
Indian, the Hottentot, the South Sea Islander, the 
" natives of Ormus and of Ind," shall come up to the 
general assembly and church of the first-born. 

From every isle, from every clime they come, 

To see thy beauty and to share thy joy, 

Zion ! an assembly such as earth 

Saw never, such as heaven stoops down to see ! 

Bright as a sun the sacred city shines : 

All kingdoms and all princes of the earth 

Flock to that light ; the glory of all lands 

Flows into her ; unbounded is her joy, 

And endless her increase. Thy rams are there, 

Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar there : 

The looms of Ormus and the mines of Ind, 

And Saba's spicy groves pay tribute there. 

Praise is in all her gates ; upon her walls, 

And in her streets, and in her spacious courts, 

Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there 

Kneels with the native of the farthest West ; 

And Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand, 

And worships. Her report has travelled forth 

Into all lands. Thus heavenward all things tend. 

COWPKR. 

4* 



82 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE FOOTSTEPS OF BEAUTY TRACED BY A TRAVELLER IN 
NATURE, LANGUAGE, AND RELIGION. 

There's beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes 
Can trace it 'midst familiar things, and through their lowly guise. 
Yes ! beauty dwells in all our paths— but sorrow too is there : 
How oft some cloud within us dims the bright, still summer air ! 
But know that by the lights and clouds through which our pathway lies, 
By the beauty and the grief alike we are training for the skies. 

Mrs. He mans. 

A canoe takes us to Wailuku— Elements of the beautiful at home and abroad— Morn- 
ing on the mountain—Effect of natural scenery upon childhood -Curious Hawaiian 
etymologies— A catalogue of queer appellatives— The peculiar genius and idioms of 
the Hawaiian tongue— Words to be domesticated into English— Conversational uses 
of the native— Commendable solicitude of Hawaiians for the purity of their lan- 
guage—Classical discussion at an assembly of teachers— Fear of barbarous innova- 
tions from abroad— A book of fables suggested— Their uses iUustrated-Isaac Taylor 
on the employment of the Esopian vehicle of instruction— Notices of the Wailuku 
church and pastor— Resolutions for the independent support of the ministry- 
Praiseworthy instance of Hawaiian gratitude— Mr. Green's experiment at Makawao 
—Beneficial results— Reasonings of natives— Union of faith and works— Affecting 
tests of Christianity— Resolves of pastors preparatory to independency— Initiatory 
steps— Remarkable consummation in the jubilee year of the nineteenth century. 

Six hours' sail by canoe along the coast of Maui, 
and a walk of eight miles, have brought us to Wailuku, 
the windward station of this island, where constitu 
tions debilitated by the long-continued heat and con- 
finement of a leeward residence, find repair and 
health from the bracing trades and exercise on 



GRAZING-GROUNDS BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS. 83 

horseback, for which latter there are more facili- 
ties in roads and horses than at any station yet 
visited. 

The mission-houses are situated on a gently sloping 
plain, about half a mile from the base of an abrupt 
mountainous ridge, that rises in some of its peaks to 
the height of six or seven thousand feet. The tract is 
watered by a side canal from a stream that is abun- 
dantly supplied by mountains, 

On whose rugged breast 

The laboring clouds do often rest. 

The plain looks towards the east, and slopes down- 
ward to the sea on both sides, at the north and south, 
being traversed by a range of sand-hills that separate 
East and West Maui. These were once two islands, 
and are now divided only by the sand and a low isth- 
mus, daily enlarging, which, together with the tracts 
on each side, furnish pasturage for large herds of cat- 
tle, horses, and goats. 

There is beauty here, material and moral, human 
and divine, on the blue sea always in sight, and on 
the green or sun-dried land. There is beauty within 
the mission-houses, and beauty abroad in the daily 
paths of usefulness trodden assiduously, by the labo- 
rious men and women to whom Providence has here 
assigned a sphere of duty, in which they cheerfully 
revolve. There are trials, and sorrows, and crosses, 
too, here, as always in the lot of man, which true 
piety, however, is converting daily into elements of 



84 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

beauty. Hence it is that we have taken the motto 
of this Chapter from that beautiful composition of 
England's Poetess, " Our Daily Paths," written in 

The cheerful faith that all which we behold 
Is full of blessings. 

I have said there is beauty abroad ; for as you look 
off to the east, towering up to heaven in calm majesty, 
there is the beautiful long mountain of Hale-a-Ka-La, 
or The House of the Sun. From its top, ten thousand 
feet above the rest of the world, the bright eye of day 
opens every morning with a golden glory, and sends 
his level beams across to the opposite range on West 
Maui, and aslant down the mountain's fire-worn sides, 
showing the cones and chasms of old volcanoes. 
Sometimes a snow-drift lies on its summit in the 
morning. Always it is there, the same great object 
in its quiet beauty, which from morning to morning it 
does one good to behold. 

To rise up a little before the sun, and look out upon 
the azure face of that calm mountain, beautiful in its 
distance and repose, and lofty and vast as the Al- 
mighty made it, can hardly fail of filling a heart with 
joy that is at peace with God. 

By half past nine or ten, clouds have drifted on to 
its bosom, and there they are all day long, the blue 
crown of the mountain alone visible above them, 
until nightfall, when they generally vanish or sail 
away, and leave it open to the beams of the moon and 
stars. 



POWER OF NATURAL SCENERY IN YOUTH. 85 

The salutary moral influence of opening one's eyes 
every morning upon such a scene, though it may be 
imperceptible at the time, is very great. It is well 
for a family of children that they may drink it in and 
have joy in it, although they do not know why; and 
in beholding all the beautiful things of nature, which 
they never stop, in their innocent delight, to call beau- 
tiful, or once think what it is that is making them so 
happy. 

Yet all the while, if their training within doors be 
only right, by such joyous intercourse with nature in 
a happy childhood, they are laying a broad foundation 
of permanent after peace. Even as we are instructed 
in the "Excursion," 

Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things, 

We shall be wise perforce ; and while inspired 

By Truth, and conscious that the will is free, 

Unswerving we shall move, as if impelled 

By strict necessity along the path 

Of order and of good. Whate'er we see, 

What e'er we feel, by agency direct 

Or indirect, shall tend to feed and nurse 

Our faculties, shall fix in calmer seats 

Of moral strength, and raise to loftier heights 

Of love divine, our intellectual soul. 

There are in this region four streams in succession 
from the different gorges of the mountain, significant- 
ly named, it is thought, from the events of battles 
which have transpired upon them. WaiJcapu — The 
water where the conch was blown, and the engage- 
ment began. Waiehu — The water where the com- 



86 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

batants smoked with chest and perspiration. Wai- 
luku — The water of destruction, where the battle 
began to be fierce and fatal. Waihee — The water 
of total rout and defeat, w x here the army melted 
away. 

The Hawaiians were particularly fond of annexing 
a wai, (water,) if possible, in the names of places. It 
is like the Eastern word wadi, (water,) that occurs so 
often in the names of places in Arabia, as "Wadi Mousa, 
"Wadi Seder, &c. Undoubtedly it is the same word, 
with the mere ellipsis, for euphony's sake, of the con- 
sonant d. 

And it might be remarked, in passing, that not a 
few of such verbal analogies go far towards proving 
the original identity of the languages of Polynesia 
and the East. Almost all valleys in Hawaii-nei, and 
places that have the precious boon of water, are call- 
ed wai with some descriptive epithet, as Waiohinu, 
sparkling water ; Waialua, two waters, or double wa- 
ter ; Kawaihae, broken waters, &c. 

In giving names to each other, and to their children, 
Hawaiians were often not a little whimsical and droll. 
The most trifling circumstance or accident fixed their 
nomenclature ; and names were as likely to be taken 
from things and qualities disgusting and vile, as 
from the opposite, and to be borne without any dis- 
grace. 

Tou might know that a people must have been vile 
from the vile names they assume and wear without 
shame — names that one would be unwilling to trans- 



CURIOUS HAWAIIAN ETYMOLOGIES. 87 



late. All evil appetites and qualities, bodily organs 
and deformities, mischievous acts and vices, were 
turned into names. Thus there are persons named 
Moekolohe, (adultery ;) Kekuko, (lust ;) Kahahu, (an- 
ger;) Haaheo, (pride;) Kalili, (jealousy;) Kaino, (bad;) 
Aihue, (thief;) Wahahe, (liar;) Pelapela, (filth;) Mo- 
lowa, (lazy ;) Pupule, (crazy ;) Puhi-baka, (tobacco- 
smoker ;) Inurama, (rum-drinker,) &c. 

It is not a little amusing sometimes, though it be 
disgusting at others, to trace out their etymologies. 
"When the chief woman, Kapiolani, at Kealakekua, 
was sick, and had submitted to a surgical operation, 
a child of a common man happening to be born about 
that time, was called Four-Inches-Long, in order to 
commemorate the length of the wound. 

So, not to mention a great variety of natural objects 
from which they derived names, there are some men 
noways deformed, called Pupuka, (crooked ;) Maka- 
ino, (ugly-face ;) Kamakalepo, (dirty-face ;) Kealiio- 
punui, (big-bellied-chief ;) Blind-of-one-eye, Lame-of- 
one-leg, &c. 

The names of the Diabolonians and Men of Man- 
Soul in Bunyan's Holy War, or of the soldiers of 
Cromwell's army, are not more whimsical and odd 
than are to be found often in Hawaii-nei. Messrs. 
Jolly, Gripe, Griggish, Pake-all, and their excellen- 
cies, Mr. Carnal-sense, Live-by-feeling, Love-lust, Hate- 
good, Mr. Facing-both-ways, Sergeant Bind-their-kings- 
in-chains, Captain Hew-Agag-in-pieces-before-the-Lord, 
and others, compare very well with the queer appella- 



88 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

tions by which Hawaiians often call each other and 
foreigners. 

Missionaries were for a long time called the Ai-oe-oe, 
(long-necks,) because, when the Hawaiians first saw 
the missionary wives with bonnets, making them to 
appear as if long-necked, they cried out, Ai-oe-oe. 
Chiefs among them went by many names, all expres- 
sive of something ; and a new name was frequently 
assumed after any exploit or event of their lives, to 
keep it in memory, as the Romans honored their suc- 
cessful generals with appellations derived from the 
cities or countries which they had conquered ; as, Caius 
Marcius Coriolanus, Scipio Africanus, Cato Uticensis, 
&c. The names of the present King, Kaui-ke-ao-uli, 
and of the Premier, Ke-kau-luohe, mean Hanging- 
upon-the-blue-sky, and Bamboo-grove. 

The Hawaiian language, that admits so readily of 
these compounds, is simple in its structure, and very 
easy and uniform both in its orthography and pronun- 
ciation. Aside from the facile genius of the tongue, 
this is owing to the good sense and judgment of the 
missionaries who first reduced it to writing. They ad- 
mitted no silent letters, and adopted the uniform 
Spanish designation of the vowel-sounds. Hence, as 
in that beautiful language, a, e, i, o, and u, always 
have each but one, and its own sound, varied only 
by quantity : so that, unlike what is found in the 
English and French, the language is spelt and pro- 
nounced just as it is written, and vice versa. Any 
one that has a knowledge of the Spanish at once 



PECULIAR HAWAIIAN IDIOMS. 89 

slides into the pronunciation of the Hawaiian vow- 
els. 

The variety of only twelve letters expresses every 
Hawaiian sound, by reason of which, and the constant 
repetition of vowel terminations, the language to for- 
eigners sounds monotonous. Also, no word ever ends 
in a consonant, nor can two consonant sounds come to- 
gether, but a vowel is always interposed. Thus, an 
Hawaiian, in writing or pronouncing Boston, Lon- 
don, Bedford, will say Bosetona, Lonedona, Bede- 
foda. 

Some of the idioms are very peculiar and curious. 
There is no auxiliary verb to be, nor any word to ex- 
press the abstract idea of being or existence. Good 
idiomatic Hawaiian is, therefore, in short sentences, or 
clauses thereof, and the same word may be a noun or 
a verb, according to the sense to be expressed, without 
change. This, and the destitution of general terms, 
while specific ones are numerous, constitutes a state of 
the language favorable to the art of poetry. 

There are no variations in nouns for case, number, 
or person ; but the mood and tenses of verbs are pretty 
clearly distinguished by simple prefixes and suffixes. 
The mode of conjugating verbs, the existence of a cau- 
sative form, and the derivation of words from roots of 
two syllables, are thought to indicate a resemblance 
and cognate origin with the Hebrew and other Orient- 
al tongues. 

The use of the particle no in the way of affirmation 
or affirmative emphasis, like yes indeed, no indeed, is 



90 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

very peculiar, as being so the reverse of all the lan- 
guages of Europe, where it is negative. Tell an Ha- 
waiian to stop or leave off any thing he is doing, as 
ua ohi, ua oki pela, and he answers, I stop indeed, oki 
au no , or stop no ! 

Ask a man a question to which he does not know or 
wish to give the answer — as, "What did you do it for? — 
and the reply commonly heard will be, He aha la ! 
what indeed ! Ask a native about the climate of a 
place — as, whether it is rainy or not — and he will 
think he gives you a very wise answer, though it is a 
most amusing and unsatisfactory one to the asker : 
Ina ua, ua no, (If or when it rains, it rains ;) Ina aole, 
aole no, (If not, no indeed;) Ina ua pinepine, pinepine 
no, (If it rain often, often indeed it rains ;) A i hihi i 
ha manawa ua, ua no, (And when the rain-time has 
come, there is rain indeed !) 

So, when you ask a native, sometimes, where he is 
going, he will answer you very respectfully, E hele au 
makahi E hele ai, I am going where I'm going, or 
what amounts to the English expression, without any 
of its impudence, I am following my nose! Ask a 
man whom you are employing what shall be done in 
any exigency, and he generally answers, Eia no ia oe, 
(That's with you, that's for you to say.) 

There is one Hawaiian word which, for its sin- 
gular convenience and expressiveness, I would be 
glad to get domesticated into English, and that is 
PiliMa. They use it to signify any strait, or diffi- 
culty, or perplexity a man is brought into, by. acci- 



HAWAIIAN WORDS WORTHY OF ADOPTION. 91 

dent, or sickness, or the mismanagement or ill con- 
duct of others. 

In the speech of the King at the forced cession of 
the Islands to Paulet, it occurs Yerj aptly. " Hear 
ye ! I make known to yon that I am in perplexity 
(piliJcia) by reason of difficulties into which I have 
been brought without cause ; therefore I have given 
away the life of our land. Hear ye ! But my will 
over you, my people, and your privileges, will con- 
tinue, for I have hope that the life of the land will be 
restored when my conduct is justified." 

When one becomes familiarized with this term, there 
is no word that can be thought of half so expressive to 
denote one's extremity and strait ; and hence you will 
hear it used in conversation by missionaries in the 
midst of their English, as if it were legalized old Sax- 
on. The same is true of the word akamai, expert, skil- 
ful, ready at any thing. 

The compound word for hope is beautifully expres- 
sive : it is manaolana, or the swimming thought — faith 
floating and keeping its head aloft, above water, when 
all the waves and billows are going over one — a strik- 
ingly beautiful definition of hope, worthy to be set 
down along with the answer which a deaf and dumb 
person wrote with his pencil, in reply to the question, 
"What was his idea of forgiveness ? " It is the odor 
which flowers yield when trampled on." 

At a convocation of teachers held at this place, to 
consider their disabilities, and petition government for 



92 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

a redress of grievances, I have been highly pleased 
with the solicitude which some of them have mani- 
fested to maintain the purity of their Hawaiian tongue. 
They w T ere over ninety in all, a respectable, orderly 
body, having their President and Secretaries, and dis- 
posing of all questions in due form and order. 

One of the subjects first discussed was the name by 
which they should call their meeting, as it was a new 
thing under the sun for Hawaiians. It was proposed 
to adopt, so far as they could, the English word 
Society, and call the convention The Teachers' Society, 
Sokieke o na Kumu. 

To this some of them resolutely objected, just as we 
may imagine Cicero or Pericles would to an unauthor- 
ized innovation upon the classic Latin or Greek, that 
their language was getting harbarous y that foreigners 
were corrupting and running away with it / and that, 
if they did not take care, it would soon become a mon- 
grel, and they should not know their own tongue. 

At length, with the help of their minister, they hit 
upon a vernacular compound that met the case, and 
they called the assembly AJiahui, or The United Com- 
pany. 

I cannot but venture to suggest here, that a well-se- 
lected book of the best fables extant would be a great 
boon to the Hawaiian Nation in the present stage of its 
progress. It could not but interest and quicken the 
minds both of youth and adults ; and a Heading Book 
might be made of them of singular utility and attract- 
iveness, that would constitute a mine of wealth. Ha- 



A BOOK OF FABLES SUGGESTED. 93 



waiians are now familiar with almost all the animals 
that afford subjects of fable — the ass, the dog, the horse, 
goat, sheep, cattle, and swine ; besides cats, rats, and 
mice, (those prolific fable-breeders,) domestic fowls, and 
birds. 

It is remarked by Isaac Taylor, in his admirable 
work entitled " Home Education," that the distinctive 
characteristics of animals bear such an analogy to the 
varieties of human character, as has in all ages sug- 
gested the mythic form of instruction, and such as im- 
parts to fable a degree of fixedness, or, one might say, 
authenticity, which hardly admits of its being dis- 
turbed. 

The relative dispositions and habits of the bee and 
the wasp, the dog, the wolf, and the fox, and the moral 
pictures queness of temper which we attribute to the 
ass, the magpie, the parrot, the viper, the owl, the 
jackal, the ape, are such as force themselves upon our 
notice as samples of humanity in caricature. 

The first stirring of intellectuality in a people, as they 
emerge from barbarism, shows itself by catching at 
these same analogies ; and what is true of a nation in 
its infancy, is true of childhood itself; for the mind no 
sooner opens than it seizes upon these very resemblan- 
ces, and nourishes itself with them. 

"The usage of employing the Esopian fable in the 
conveyance of language, must be considered as well 
adapted for securing several ends ; inasmuch as, while 
it affords a sparkling entertainment, it brings together 
almost exclusively the descriptive portion of language, 



94 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

an early familiarity with which is in itself highly im- 
portant." 

Backed by such authority, I cannot but commend 
the preparation of a collection of fables like that here 
indicated, to the hard-working Professors of Lahaina- 
luna and Wailuku, and to the literature-founders of 
newly civilized nations generally. It would be giving 
to the people a grant of ideas, resources for the imagi- 
nation, and a fund of mental activity, not soon to be 
exhausted ; and it would materially aid the hitherto 
necessarily slow process of intellectualizing and Chris- 
tianizing barbarous tribes. 

We find the church at Wailuku to include eleven 
hundred and thirty-four members, under the pastoral 
care of Eev. E. "W. Clark. The riding abroad necessary 
in performing the duties of a pastor, and change of cli- 
mate, have proved partially restorative to his health, 
which had been much impaired by his severe sedentary 
labors in the Mission Seminary at Lahainaluna. Al- 
though far from being robust and strong, he is able 
now to execute the round of a missionary's work, in 
which, like all other business, it is happily true in 
practice, 

" That use doth breed a habit in a man," 

and render it comparatively easy. 

His church, self-moved, has just taken a stand, and 
adopted a series of resolutions for the independent sup- 
port of the Gospel ministry among them, that must be 



SPONTANEOUS RESOLVES OF A NATIVE CHURCH. 95 

highly agreeable to the feelings of a Pastor, as indica- 
ting a manly mind and Christian spirit on the -part of 
the people. 

The movement augurs well. It is an omen of good 
that may justly encourage the American Board and its 
patron churches. It has led the way to the independ- 
ent support of the Gospel ministry at the Hawaiian 
Islands. The following is a translated copy, furnished 
me by the Pastor, of resolutions adopted at a full meet- 
ing of the church called on the previous sacramental 
Sabbath : 

Resolutions adopted by the church included in the territory 
from Waihee to Kahikinui : 

I. That we decline the support received by Mr. Clark from the 
Missionary Society of America, and that this church of Wailuku 
unite together to supply all his wants in this thing and that thing, 
which he needs for his support. 

II. That his support from America be sent to those places where 
the name of the Saviour has not been heard. 

III. That certain persons be appointed to stir up the people 
to this work, and that the collections be made four times in a 
year. 

IV. That collectors be appointed in different parts of the dis- 
trict, whose duty it shall be to take care of the property contributed 
by the church. 

V. That the contributions at the monthly concert, and contribu- 
tions for other definite objects, be kept distinct from what is con- 
tributed for the support of the pastor. 

VI. That the names of all who assent to this proposition be at- 
tached to this engagement entered into by this church, and that it 
be the duty of the collectors to take down the names. 

VII. In thi3 manner shall each one give according to his abil- 



96 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

ity — some one dollar, some fifty cents, some twenty-five cents, 
some twelve and a half cents, some six cents — according as 
each one receives, from the highest to the lowest, so shall he 
give. 

VIII. To carry out these resolutions is the great thing; for it is 
an important work, and a work by which both our country and our- 
selves will be benefited. 

IX. That this church engage, if they are out on a journey on 
Saturday, that they will not travel on the Sabbath, but remain and 
keep the Lord's day. 

It is natural to "mention in the same connection the 
recent instance of a man (not a church member) who 
had been early taught at Lahainaluna, and had be- 
come, through his knowledge and skill there acquired, 
a man of wealth and standing. He brought lately to 
Mr. Clark a present of four dollars, saying it was a 
mea aloha, (a thing of love ;) that it was to his instruc- 
tions he owed his property and place, and that he was 
going to make such a present to Mr. Andrews also, the 
first teacher in the Seminary, but now disconnected 
with it and the American Board. 

You hear it often said that there is little or no grati- 
tude in the Hawaiian mind, and they have even no 
word in their language to give thanks by. Be this as 
it may, there are few, I think, who would not agree, in 
this particular instance, that this man, at least, possess- 
ed both a sense of obligation and the feeling of grate- 
fulness, which it would be pleasing often to see evinced 
as substantially by men in other lands, that have a 
better name for refinement than his, and where the 



SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT OF ME. GREEN. 97 

institutions of Christianity are of older date than 
here. 

A great stimulus to this action of the Wailuku church 

I undoubtedly is the example of a neighboring church 
at Makawao, where Mr. Green retired after leaving 
the American Board, organized a church, and was 
settled as its pastor, on a promise of being sup- 
ported. 

He told them before he went that they must raise 

: wheat for his breadstuff, and immediately they began 
in a district called Kula, and have succeeded in fur- 

! nishing the best bread eaten at these Islands. He 
tells his lunas, persons appointed for this purpose, 

j when he wants any thing, and forthwith they do all 
the jpaipaiing (stirring up) among the people, and it 
comes. 

They also supply his domestics with food, haul all 
his wood and timber, have put up the adobe dwelling 
he now lives in, and are making ready to build a good 
stone or wattled house. 

The pastor of Makawao received from his people on 
January 4th, 1851, five hundred and thirty dollars in 
money, as their free-will offerings to aid him in the 
support of himself and his family. In addition, they 

c paid about forty dollars to a licensed native preacher of 
the Gospel, who has been laboring among them. They 
have also paid, during the year 1850, eight hundred 
dollars in money towards the erection of a house for 
public worship, and more than one hundred and fifty 
dollars for other than domestic objects. And they 



98 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

have promptly furnished their pastor with such com- 
forts for his table as their fields afford. 

The so far successful experiment he is making in a 
place by no means the most favorable for it, will go far 
to convince the native churches and the mission that 
missionaries can be supported on the spot, not only 
without impoverishing, but to the actual enriching of 
the people, by the efforts it demands, and the produc- 
tive energy. it constrains them to put forth. It is as 
true here as anywhere, that the liberal soul is made 
fat, and he that watereth is watered also himself. 
There is that giveth and yet increaseth. There is that 
withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to pov- 
erty. Giving here, no more than in America, does not 
impoverish ; withholding doth not enrich. 

The churches at Wailuku and Makawao are begin- 
ning to find it out. The more they give, the more 
(say they) they have. It was not a little amusing, as 
well as affecting, to hear them sagely debate and ex- 
press their minds, at the meeting in which this church 
unanimously resolved to support their teacher. 

Various and interesting were the reasons given for 
so doing. One old man, bronzed with the tropical suns 
of sixty summers, said, with a native eloquence and 
emphasis not to be forgotten, that once his dollars and 
hajpahas used to go for tobacco and his sins, and it was 
all foho, that is, sunk; and now it was a small thing to 
give them for the support of the Gospel, by which he 
had been led to leave off his sins. 

Another said they were once thieves and murderers, 



AFFECTING INSTANCES OF LIBERALITY. 99 

and their property and lives were insecure ; and now 
it was but fair to give for the Gospel, by which it was 
that they had made their property, and were able also 
to keep it, and were so much better off than they used 
to be. 

Another said, if they supported their own teacher, 
he would be theirs. Now they had had Mr. Green, 
and hs had gone ; Mr. Armstrong, and he had gone ; 
and their tears had fallen, but they had murmured and 
| wept in vain. But if they themselves should pay their 
teacher, he would he theirs / they should hoojpaa him, 
that is, make him fast. 

Another said that in this thing they must not prom- 
ise and then not perform, but whatever they said they 
would give they must give. That he himself was hewa 
(that is, wrong) in this matter ; he had sometimes prom- 
ised what he had not yet performed. Then, after meet- 
ing was over, he came to Mr. Clark with three dollars, 
saying it was a part of five which he had promised a 
good while ago to the American Bible Company, for 
printing the Hawaiian Bible, of which he was so glad 
to have a copy. 

Any benevolent patron of Missions, to have been 
there and heard them debate, and to have witnessed 
the evidence of their sincerity, would have thanked 
God from his inmost soul for having ever been able, or 
induced, to give to carry the Gospel where it had pro- 
duced such benign results. And he would have said, 
Let me deny myself in order to give this blessed Gos- 
pel to all the world ; for this same Gospel, if applied 

LofC. 



100 LITE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



to all the world as at the Sandwich Islands, would, 
there is every reason to believe, produce the same re- 
sults — results that have all been secured within less 
than thirty years since missionaries were first planted 
there among a race of indescribably depraved and de- 
based heathen. 

After this action on the part of the church at Wai- 
luku, a committee of missionaries, on the subject of 
the support of pastors by their people, reported to the 
General Meeting convened at O aim as follows : 

1. That we regard the subject one of great importance to the 
prosperity of Christian institutions in these Islands ; and that it is 
peculiarly gratifying to learn that some churches and congregations 
have resolved to make the attempt to support their pastors, and are 
actually taking measures to effect the object. 

2. That, considering the increase of means, and the advance- 
ment of correct principles among the people, we believe the time 
has come when several of the more able congregations might be 
induced to support their pastors wholly, and many others might do 
it in part; and we believe the present is a peculiarly favorable 
time to present this subject to our several congregations, inasmuch 
as there is already, in many intelligent natives, an interest awaken- 
ed to this subject. 

3. That every pastor take great pains to instruct his people, and 
especially the church members, in the right use of money; to 
teach them to curtail all useless superfluities, such expenses as are 
incurred merely for show and ornament ; and to induce them to 
appropriate their means to useful objects only, such as will secure 
to them all the advantages and comforts of complete civilization, 
and especially to sustain among themselves all the institutions of 
the Gospel, as the foundation upon which their temporal and eter- 
nal welfare must depend. 



STEPS TOWARDS INDEPENDENCY. 101 

4. In order to bring this subject in the most advantageous man- 
ner before the congregations which are able to support their pas- 
tors, in whole or in part, we recommend that the pastor, together 
with such two members of the mission, and perhaps such influen- 
tial native Christians as he may call to his aid, be a committee to 
present this subject before the people, and, in concert with them, to 
devise such practical and efficient measures as will secure the ob- 
ject; and we recommend further, that these efforts be made as 
soon as practicable after the close of the present General 
Meeting. 

These initiatory steps, beginning, it will be noticed, 
with the people tinder the training of missionaries, 
have resulted, in the year 1849, in an offer and ac- 
ceptance, on the part of the Sandwich Islands Mission, 
of a proposition of independency from the American 
Board. 

The fiftieth year of the nineteenth century closes 
auspiciously with the grand experiment of a self-sup- 
porting Mission in the Heart of the Pacific suc- 
cessfully under way. Who of our readers does not 
earnestly implore for it the blessing of the Almighty 
Lord God, whose providences have been so marked 
and many towards that infant Christendom, the founda- 
tions of which have been thus gloriously laid ? 



102 LIFE IIS" THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



CHAPTER V. 

A GLANCE AT THE PROVINCE AND RESULT OF MISSIONS IN THE 
HEART OF THE PACIFIC, AND A VISIT TO THE PALACE OF 

THE SUN. 

I watch with throbbing heart the zeal, 

Whose all-incorporating plan 
Can teach a million souls to feel 

For all that's man — for all that's man ! 
And every human title blend 
In those of Brother and of Friend. 

Bowring. 

A passing tribute to the true modern apostles — Character of Protestant civilization- 
Theory and practice at Wailuku — History and progress of the Female Sem- 
inary — Province of woman in the work of civilization — How fulfilled — Exam- 
ination of schools — Hawaiian girls — Trip to the crater of Hale-a-ka-la — We 
reach the brim — Novel scene opened at the top— Spectacle of grandeur and glory 
presented by the clouds — A play-ground for the youth of heaven — Feelings belong- 
ing to such a position— Man's nothingness and the Creator's glory — Rhapsody of 
Rowland Hill — Luther's view of the majestic vault of God — Lesson we learned 
from the lofty look-out of Hale-a-ka-la — A sight from the cliffs of eternity — Mont- 
gomery's imprecation — We are let down safely — We pass to the sugar-making on 
East Maui — Farming lands — Horseback route through Haiku — Sand-hills and an- 
cient Golgotha— Reflections on a skull — Evidence of former culture and dense pop- 
ulation — Present record of deaths and births — Mortality of the year 1848 by measles 
— Culture of rice by Chinamen — Fine appearance of the garden and terraces of 
Wailuku — Entertainment at the Seminary — Sports with the children. 

Without being of the craft,-— an honor which provi- 
dences have forbidden, — we freely confess to what may 
already have been discovered in these pages, namely, 
to an unfeigned love and respect for foreign missiona- 
ries. Well knowing whereof we affirm, we hold them 
worthy of all honor. They are Civilization's pioneers 



THE TRUE WORKING SOCIALISTS. 103 

and explorers, as well as the tamers of mankind and 
preachers of the Gospel. 

It is of them that Tacitus might have said most 
truly, Emolliunt mores, nee sinunt esse feros — They 
soften and improve both the manners and the morals 
of men, and forbid their living like beasts. They are 
Humanity's best teachers ; Freedom's truest cham- 
pions ; Labor's ablest lifters ; Society's real equalizers, 
and the clearest expounders of the rights of man. 
They are, indeed, the only true Apostles of Liberty, 
Fraternity, Equality — the world's working Socialists. 
They are the heralds and advance-guard of Agriculture, 
Science, and Art, and of all true social reformation, as 
well as of virtue and religion. 

In their relations to barbarous tribes, and to the 
wide world of suffering humanity, they alone do truly 
blend in one the Christianizer, Civilizer, Benefactor, 
Brother, Friend. They act in the spirit of John Hamp- 
den's motto, Nulla vestigia retrorsum — No steps back- 
ward, 

A practical demonstration of this is now seen at 
Wailuku ; and it is pleasant to be able to testify of a 
station which, up to 1850, has enjoyed the labors of 
resident missionaries for eighteen years, that the people 
seem to be better clad, better housed, and to live better 
than at any other part of this Heart of the Pacific yet 
visited. Three special reasons may be assigned for it : 
First, The region is a fruitful one, supplying kalo and 
potatoes in abundance, and furnishing pasturage for 
herds, in which natives begin to hold property. Sec- 



104 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

ond, A good market is opened for their products at 
Lahaina, within thirty miles, at which they can obtain 
cloth. Third, Something has been done in the way of 
agriculture and internal improvements by the mission- 
aries. 

The station was first taken by the Rev. J. S. Green, 
with whom was afterwards associated the Eev. Rich- 
ard Armstrong, both laborious and practical men. 
Much benefit has also been derived here from the resi- 
dence and labors of the blind preacher, Bartimeus, 
the first convert to Christianity at these Islands. He 
died, beloved and lamented, in September, 1844. But 
his works do follow him, and shall be had in ever- 
lasting remembrance. A little memoir of this good 
man has been published, and a larger work on his Life 
and Times is said to be in preparation by the first pas- 
tor of the Wailuku church. 

The influence of the Female Seminary located here 
has undoubtedly also been great and salutary. It was 
commenced by Mr. Green, in 1837, by the erection of 
a substantial stone building, fifty-six feet long by twenty- 
four wide, and two stories high. Thirty pupils were 
admitted that year, and an excellent female teacher 
associated in the instruction and care of them, who con- 
tinues to occupy a post of so much usefulness. In 1840, 
the charge of the school was given to Mr. Bailey, which 
he still retains. The largest number of pupils at any 
one time has been seventy. The present number is 
fifty-two. 

Besides the stone building first erected, there are 






DISCIPLINE OF THE FEMALE SEMINARY. 105 

now a fine Chapel forty feet long, furnished with desks, 
seats, and school apparatus ; two neat lecture and reci- 
tation rooms, floored, painted, and whitewashed ; two 
ranges of adobe buildings for dormitories, one hundred 
and twenty feet long, in front and rear of the chapel ; 
thirty acres of land inclosed and under cultivation by 
a native farmer attached to the institution, and eight 
native laborers. 

The time of the pupils is employed as follows : one 
hour from early rising in the garden, then prayers and 
breakfast, recreations and miscellaneous work till nine ; 
then two hours with Miss Ogden in spinning, knitting, 
and sewing ; bathing, relaxation, and dinner, till two ; 
then two hours of recitation and study with Mr. Bailey, 
followed by an hour's work in the garden ; supper 
between five and six ; evening prayers at half past 
seven ; hours of retiring eight and nine, according to 
their ages. 

More time was at first spent within doors and in 
study. But it was found detrimental to health, and 
that the Hawaiian constitution, used to indolence, free- 
dom, and sunshine, could not bear much confinement 
without giving way. "Weekly excursions are now taken 
with their teacher to the mountain or sea-shore, and 
care is used to keep them much in the open air. The 
health of the school is consequently better, and they 
form a company of hearty, happy girls, as fond of a 
romp and ball-playing, and as glad to be noticed, as 
ever boarding-school girls are in America. 

Five of them are members of the church, and sev- 

5* 



106 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

eral others are hopefully pious. Ten or twelve having 
finished their course, have been married to graduates 
from Lahainaluna, and others are held in reserve for 
the same market. 

The design of the female seminary, says Mr. Dibble, 
is to take a class of young females into a boarding- 
school, away, in a measure, from the contaminating in- 
fluences of heathen society, to train them to habits of 
industry, neatness, and order, to instruct them in em- 
ployments suited to their sex, to cultivate their minds, 
to improve their manners, and to instil the principles 
of religion ; to fit them to be suitable companions for 
the scholars of the Mission Seminary, and examples 
of propriety among the females of the Sandwich Isl- 
ands. 

The short time in which the institution has been in 
operation hardly authorizes a judgment, as to how far 
these ends have been answered. But no one who ex- 
amines it, and sees its practical working, can fail of the 
conviction that female family boarding-schools must 
form a very important instrumentality in the work of 
elevating this nation. 

The women remaining as they now are, men, what- 
ever pains may be bestowed on them, can get but little 
higher ; while with every single degree of woman's as- 
cent in the scale of civilization and goodness, you raise 
man two. The two lessons of chief importance for 
Hawaiian women to learn, are modesty and industry. 
Induce these, and every thing is gained — the end of 
female education at present answered. But a train- 



WOMEN AS THEY ABE AND SHOULD BE. 107 

ing that does not accomplish this, fails entirely, how 
much soever knowledge may be communicated, or art 
learned. 

Let an Hawaiian female be only modest and indus- 
trious, and she will make a neat and prudent wife, 
and a better mother than ever Hawaiian boy has had 
yet. Many such, we cannot but hope, will be made 
under the management of the teachers of this insti- 
tution. May God give them wisdom and skill, and 
permit them to see all, on whom they have bestowed 
pains, examples of womanly propriety to the females 
of Hawaii-nei ! 

It is impossible to see them going in a body to the 
sanctuary, uniformly apparelled, sitting orderly by 
themselves, attending, many of them, diligently to ser- 
mons, that they may sustain an examination on them, 
and looked upon with regard and interest by the rest 
of the congregation, without being convinced that the 
indirect influence of the institution is beneficial and 
great. Perhaps it is to be attributed to this, that the 
common schools in this district are reported the 
present year more favorably of, and as in a better 
state than in any other field from which a report is 
made. 

There are twenty-five schools, and eight hundred 
and eight scholars. I have had the pleasure of seeing 
them collected at three or four different points for a 
quarterly examination by the pastor, and kahic-Jcula, 
(school superintendent.) They are dressed at such 
times in their best " bib and tucker," which, with the 



108 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

boys, is a shirt and pantaloons, with perhaps a cotton 
handkerchief over their shoulders for a Mhei ; with 
the girls, their mother's, or some mdkamcikals, best 
robe and feather, lei, (wreath,) and any thing for a Mhei 
they can muster, either a nice white Jeapa, or a breadth 
of silk, or something figured.- 

The prettiest thing of all is their flower-wreaths, es- 
pecially those made of the yellow ilima. They string 
the blossoms on a stem of grass with much taste and 
skill, and no little patience. With these the girls 
wreathe their heads sometimes like a turban, and hang 
them round their necks, which, though they be red- 
skinned, are sometimes erect and beautiful as that fa- 
mous one of Mary Queen of Scots. 

I like the Hawaiians for their fondness for flowers, 
or, rather, for decorating their persons with them. It 
is a pity a custom so innocent in itself should ever 
have to be discountenanced by their religious teachers. 
Some have thought it necessary to do so, because 
wearing of Zeis has been abused to purposes of vanity, 
and meretricious allurement and display. We can 
hardly believe, however, that much harm can ensue 
from putting flowers or feathers to such a use, while 
the taste is brought thereby into pleasurable exercise, 
and so far certainly is good. 

And while the bonnets of foreign ladies, now and then, 
perhaps, of missionaries, are seen fluttering with gay rib- 
bons and plumes, it is hardly fair to put a tabu on birds' 
feathers and wild-flowers for the heads of Hawaiian 
women. There are ways of wearing them which, it is 



THE LESSONS TAUGHT BY FLOWERS. 109 

said, have a vicious meaning, for which church mem- 
bers have been sometimes disciplined ; with how much 
propriety, the good men that have done it, and who 
may be supposed to know most of native customs and 
character, are the best judges. Poor human nature is 
wont to abuse to its injury almost every thing, wheth- 
er evil or good. But I think the tempter must be 
brought to an unusual pinch before he would have 
recourse to so innocent and sweet a thing as flowers, 
whereby to teach men how to tempt and vitiate one 
another. 

One whom I greatly honor and love says, though not 
for the world's eye, that 

Flowers are books — the sweetest leaves 
That Nature's wisdom ever weaves : 
And wise and gentle hearts we need, 
Their deep and varied lore to read. 
Some melancholy lessons, too, 
We would not have them hide from view. 

And it was the queen of English female poets that sang 
of the flowers, — 

Bring flowers, fresh flowers, for the bride to wear ! 
They were born to blush in her shining hair. 
She is leaving the home of her childhood's mirth, 
She hath bid farewell to her father's hearth : 
Her place is now by another's side, — 
Bring flowers for the locks of the fair young bride ! 

But farewell for a while to flowers, and to the maid- 
ens that wear them, for we are on a horseback excur- 
sion of thirty-five miles from Wailuku to the top of 






110 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Hale-a-ka-la, The House of the Sun. We make up our 
party at Kev. Mr. Green's, who resides two thousand 
feet up the gentle declivity of the mountain. From 
his house, at five in the morning, we start for the sum- 
mit of the extinct volcano, eight of us in all mounted, 
and one native on foot. 

To within five miles of the top, as far as an old bul- 
lock-pen, into which the Spaniards used to chase wild 
cattle, the path is distinct and quite good, and the as- 
cent not steep. Thence it is very rugged and stony 
without any legible track. 

Hills peep o'er hills, 
And Alps o'er Alps arise, 

as we advance ; and when we think we see and shall 
soon reach the last, lo! there runs up before us another 
ridge-like wall, equally distant and high. 

At length, by half past ten, we reach the crater's 
brim, and, dismounting from our tired horses, those of 
us who have been able to urge them so far, advance 
to the edge, and there suddenly opens upon us a 
deep, wide pit, twenty-five or thirty miles in circumfer- 
ence, and two or three thousand feet deep. We count- 
ed in it fourteen or sixteen basins of old volcanoes, vol- 
cano within volcano, as a wheel within a wheel. There 
are also two vast openings or sluice-gates in the lava 
walls, one on the northeast, and one on the southeast, 
out of which the molten lava and sand once poured 
down to the sea. 

In this great pit a man would be dwarfed to the size 



SPECTACLE OF GLORY FROM THE CRATER. Ill 

of an infant ; and great silver-sword plants, (ensis ar- 
genteaj) as large as a half-bushel, looked, away down 
on the sides of those volcanic cones, like little white 
pebbles. Its walls and ramparts are as huge and high, 
for aught I know, as those " Hell-bounds" in our great 
English Epic, that kept within the rebel angels. And 
if a man should once get down there, methinks he 
would look up oppressed, and feel like Sterne's star- 
ling, " I can't get out." 

But if the view of the now extinct crater, once roll- 
ing its fiery surges, and vomiting from a score of 
mouths its igneous bowels, was vast and strange, a 
spectacle of far more grandeur was that immediately 
presented, as we looked afar over the crater to the 
northeast and west — a spectacle which neither the 
tongue, nor pen of angels or men, could ever so de- 
scribe as to give to any mind an adequate conception 
of its magnificence and glory. 

" 0, 'twas an unimaginable sight ! 
Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks, and emerald turf, 
Clouds of all tincture, rocks, and sapphire sky, 
Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed, 
In fleecy folds voluminous enwrapped." 

We had seen for a long time, as we kept ascending, 
the clouds gathering and rolling up beneath us at a 
distance of four thousand feet ; for, owing to its rarifi- 
cation, the air is incapable of sustaining clouds beyond 
a certain height, and the principal masses are held at 
an average elevation above the level of the sea of five 
thousand two hundred and eighty feet, or one mile. 



112 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



Now we turned to look from our elevated position of 
ten thousand feet, and beliold ! one vast expanse, like 
a field of purest new-fallen snow, which the wind has 
rolled in drifts and ridges, covering all the mountain, 
plain, and sea, and reflecting the sunbeams with a daz- 
zling splendor. 

JSTow and then a place would be rent or excavated in 
the snowy masses, or the curtain of cloud would be 
lifted, and the form of the Island of Lanai would be 
visible away over the mountains of Lahaina, six thou- 
sand feet high, and sometimes a portion of the bay and 
shore of Wailuku, whitened by the noiseless surf. 

Then trending off to the horizon, a hundred miles, was 
the blue Pacific, lifted up ten thousand feet by a famil- 
iar optical illusion, to a plane of vision as high as the 
very summit of Hale-a-ka-la ; and rising out of it was 
the glorious dome of Mauna Loa, on the great Island 
of Hawaii, its snow-capped summit flashing in the sun 
like a bank of alabaster. The clouds, and their shad- 
ows upon other clouds far beneath, could be seen 
hovering over the blue abyss, and sometimes they 
seemed to float in it in separate masses like great ice- 
bergs. 

The longer one looked, the greater grew the wonder 
and glory. What with the vast height, the pure, rari- 
fied air, the solemn stillness like as in creation's prime, 
the absence of every thing human and artificial, the 
smooth envelope of vapor in which every thing below 
was hid, it was as if we were looking down from 
some place in the heavens upon the bare convex of the 



REACH AND GRANDEUR OF THE PROSPECT. 113 

earth ; and one of our party remarked, that there 
was constantly in his mind the description of Milton's 
angel 

Alighting on the firm, opacous globe 

Of this round world, whose first convex divides 

The luminous inferior orbs, inclosed 

From chaos and the inroad of darkness old. 

I fairly wanted to leap down into the soft lap of the 
clouds, clear as chalcedony, and smooth and white as 
the breast of an eider-duck ; and we thought the 
sight might tempt the flight of angels from the battle- 
ments of heaven, to sport on the bosom of that beauti- 
ful sea. 

The extent of vision on each of three sides was at 
least two hundred miles. To the west, the base of the 
mountain, the bay and plains of Wailuku, the mount- 
ains of West Maui, and over them the islands of Lanai 
and Molokai, as if suspended in the sky, and the great 
Pacific. To the north, the vast ocean of clouds in mid- 
air, and of sea below. To the south, looking across 
the crater, and forty miles over the channel between 
Maui and Hawaii, could be seen, within an opening of 
the clouds, the surf-whitened shore of the latter isl- 
and ; and seventy or eighty miles further, towering up 
in majestic grandeur fourteen thousand feet above the 
ocean of clouds, were the blue summits of Mauna Kea 
and Mauna Loa, the former revealing a snow-bank on 
its top, shining like the battlements of heaven, as seen 
in the Apocalypse. 

The view this side had a reach and immensity of 



114 LIFE IN TPIE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



distance that was indescribably grand. It forms an 
impression, and fixes an image in the mind, that re- 
curs and visits one again and again, with all the viv- 
idness of a dream.* 

"While we were gazing with delight, now on one side, 
now on the other, vast masses of vapor began to roll 
into the crater through the sluice-way on the north, but 
still so low, that we were between two and three thou- 
sand feet above it In descending, we were more than 
an hour before arriving at the cloudy belt, or having 
the sun at all obscured. 



* We find it said very justly, and from a real experience and a 
true poetic insight, by a writer in the New York " Independent," as 
follows : — One who stands upon the summit of Mount Washington, 
there takes in an idea of vastness, sublimity, and power, which thence- 
forth is incorporated with his spiritual being, and winch will oft- 
times dilate his soul when he has returned to the common level of 
earth. One who stands at the base of "Niagara, or peers into its 
abyss from the overhanging cliff, receives an impression of the grand, 
the beautiful, the terrible, which thenceforth lives within him, and 
reproduces itself with its first ecstasy amid all the changes of place 
and time. One who gazes enraptured upon a beautiful picture, 
transfers it to the texture of his mind, and, whoever may possess 
it, he carries it ever with him as his own treasure. One who listens 
to an enchanting strain of music, thenceforth feels it in every pulse 
of his soul. One who hears an eloquent oration, is raised by it to 
a height of intellectual enjoyment to which he oft returns in after- 
meditation. And though these impressions cannot be conveyed to 
others in words, their influence is shared through the higher tone of 
power, of beauty, of love in him who has experienced them. There 
is, moreover, a peculiar sympathy between those who have received 
like impressions, which attracts them to each other, and enables 
them to commune together in that mysterious soul-language which has 
no outward exponent. 



EMOTIONS KIKDLED BY THE SIGHT. 115 

The feelings of a man the first time he gets so far 
above the limits of human habitation are peculiar and 
new. One wants to be some time alone, and to give 
himself silently up to the sight, in order to multiply 
and deepen by meditation the impressions which it is 
fitted to produce. 

The unfortunate Scotch naturalist, Douglass, who was 
found dead in a bullock-trap on Hawaii, describing in 
one of his letters a place on Hawaii somewhat similar 
to Hale-a-ka-la, very justly remarks, that " were the 
traveller permitted to express the emotions he feels 
while placed on such an astonishing part of the earth's 
surface, cold indeed must his heart be to the great op- 
erations of nature, and still colder towards nature's 
God, by whose wisdom and power such wonderful 
scenes were created, if he could behold them without 
deep humility, mingled with reverential awe. Man 
feels himself as nothing — as if standing on the verge 
of another world. A death-like stillness of the place, 
not an animal nor an insect to be seen, far removed 
from the din and bustle of the world, impresses on 
his mind with double force the extreme helplessness 
of his condition — an object of pity and compassion, ut- 
terly unworthy to stand in the presence of a great and 
good Saviour and holy God, and to contemplate the di- 
versified works of his hands." 

On the authority of this traveller, there was an act- 
ive crater on the summit of Mauna Loa, on Hawaii, 
when he visited it, like this extinct one of Hale-a-ka-la, 
twenty-four miles in circumference, " five miles square 



116 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

of which is a lake of liquid fire, in a state of ebullition, 
sometimes tranquil, at other times rolling its blazing 
waves with furious agitation, and casting them up in 
columns from thirty to one hundred and seventy feet 
high. In places the hardened lava assumes the form 
of Gothic arches in a colossal building, piled one above 
another in terrific, magnificence, through and among 
which the fiery fluid forces its way in a current that 
proceeds three and a quarter miles per hour, or loses 
itself in fathomless chasms at the bottom of the cal- 
dron. This volcano is twelve hundred and seventy-two 
feet deep down to the fire. Its chasms and caverns can 
never be measured."* 

It is a fit employment, when standing on the brink 
of the giant crater of Hale-a-ka-la, to give one's imagi- 
nation scope, and attempt to conceive the vast force 
and intensity of those mineral fires that, ages back, had 
this for their play-ground and place of disembogue- 
ment. "With all the helps afforded in the rugged fea- 
tures of the scene, and the visual evidence you have 
of the terrible volcanic agency that here had sweep, 
imagination falls far short of the reality. But it gives 
to the conceptive faculty vividness and amplitude to 
visit such spots, and to venture out on such imaginary 
excursions. And a man finds the material he gets 
there an element of power, sustaining the imagination 
in a longer flight, and giving its pinions strength and 
endurance. 

* Hawaiian Spectator, vol. II. p. 405. 






MARTIN LUTHER AND ROWLAND HILL. 117 

We were sorry to leave the summit without going 
down into the abyss.* But that was impossible, unless 
we would make up our minds to spend the night there, 
and try the cold and moonlight, for which we were not 
prepared. "We had, therefore, to make the best of our 
way down before nightfall, carrying with us some 
plants of the silver-sword, and specimens of a silver 
geranium, sage, and sandal-wood, picked by the way. 
Woefully worn and weary, but, through a kind Provi- 
dence, without any serious accident, we all reached 
again the hospitable house of our entertainer by six 
o'clock. 

Perhaps, in perusing this account of the spectacle 
of grandeur and glory presented by the self-sustained 
clouds of Hale-a-ka-la, some reader may call to mind 
the expression that burst from the lips of Rowland 
Hill, as he was viewing some fine scenery in England 
and Wales : — Oh, if these outskirts of the Almighty's 
dominion can with one glance so oppress the heart 
with gladness, what will be the disclosures of eternity, 
w T hen the full revelation shall be made of the things 
not seen, and of the river of the City of God ! Or that 
fine passage in one of Luther's Letters — 

" I saw lately two signs in the heavens. I looked 
from my window in the middle of the night, and I saw 
the stars, and all the majestic vault of God, sustaining 



* The bottom of this crater, according to measurements of the IT. S. 
Exploring Squadron, is 2783 feet below the summit-peak, and 2093 feet 
below the level of the wall. 



118 LIFE W THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



itself, without my being able to perceive the pillars 
upon which the Creator had propped it. Nevertheless, 
it crumbled not away. There are those, however, who 
search for these pillars, and who would fain touch them 
with their hands ; but not being able to find them, they 
trouble, lament, and fear the heavens will fall. Again, 
I saw great and heavy clouds floating over my head 
like an ocean. I could neither perceive ground on 
which they reposed, nor cords by which they were sus- 
pended ; and yet they did not fall upon us, but saluted 
us rapidly and fled away. And as they passed, I dis- 
tinguished a splendid rainbow. Slight it was, without 
doubt, and delicate ; one could not but tremble for it 
under such a mass of clouds. Nevertheless, this aery 
line sufficed to support the load, and to protect us. So 
is our rainbow weak, and the clouds heavy ; but the 
end will tell the strength of our bow." 

There is yet another and original lesson we learned 
from our lofty look-out on the House of the Sun ; which 
is this — that it is with Christians, in their travel through 
the world, their pilgrimage to the heavenly Canaan, 
as with travellers in climbing the mountains : They 
must ordinarily pass through a region of storms and 
belts of clouds, if they will get to the top ; and it is 
seldom or never that they have the clear sunshine all 
the way. They are willing, indeed, to be drenched in 
rain and enveloped in darkness, for the grandeur of a 
storm in the mountains, and to see how glorious is the 
after sun-gush. And they enjoy the clear weather and 
reach of prospect from the top all the more, for hav- 



SPIRITUAL LESSOK AND IMPULSE. 119 

irig gone through blackness and tempest in order to 
gain it. 

Who that has ever climbed with difficulty some 
commanding mountain, and thence has looked far 
down upon the zone of clouds that so lately enveloped 
him, but has felt this ? And who has not been well 
paid, as we were, for the toil and danger gone through 
in reaching- the summit, by the indescribable magnifi- 
cence of view which then burst upon him, made up, in 
great part, of those very clouds, that only rained upon 
him when he was in their bosom, but now show far be- 
low him like fields of diamonds, or pavement of chal- 
cedony in heaven's own light ? 

Even so will it be with the persevering pilgrim, 
faint, yet pursuing* when he stands on the eminence 
of Mount Zion above, having safely surmounted all the 
trials, and perils, and storms of the way. Ah, what glo- 
ry will break upon him then, if he has been found faith- 
ful here ; and what a position that will be to stand in 
and review this life, and find, in the light of eternity, 
how all things were working together for his good ! 
Excelsior, Excelsior, be my motto, as I mount up- 
ward and onward to the City of God, eternal in the 
heavens ! 



" And ye everlasting hills ! 

Buildings of God, not made with hands, 
Whose Word performs whate'er he wills, 

Whose Word, though ye shall perish, stands ; 
Can there be eyes that look on you, 

Till tears of rapture make them dim, 



120 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Nor in his works the Maker view, 

Then lose his works in Him ? 
By me, when I behold Him not, 

Or love Him not when I behold, 
Be all I ever knew forgot ; 

My pulse stand still, my heart grow cold I" 

After this memorable ascent and return from Hale- 
a-ka-la, our party were all kindly cared for by Rev. 
Mr. Green at Makawao, including the United States 
Commissioner, George Brown, since lost, as it is sup- 
posed, in a Typhoon, on his return to America by way 
of China. 

In the vicinity of Mr. Green's residence at Makawao 
is the largest sugar-making establishment at these Isl- 
ands, except that on Kauai. It belongs to an enter- 
prising and upright American, who has procured a 
lease from government, on favorable terms, of upward 
of two hundred acres of excellent land. One hundred 
and fifty are under cultivation with sugar-cane. He 
has cast-iron cylinders for his mill, which is turned by 
oxen. A large part of the fuel for his furnaces is 
the refuse ground cane. Natives are employed as 
laborers, at a rate of from twelve to twenty cents 
per day. 

The sugar has to be carted either twelve or eighteen 
miles to a landing-place, where it sells for three cents a 
pound. It is clean and well granulated, and much su- 
perior in quality to the common West India brown 
sugar. Much of the cane-juice is not made into sugar, 
but boiled into syrup or molasses, and sold for eight 
and ten cents per gallon. It is a much finer article 



FARMING LANDS AT EAST MAUI. 121 

than that which sells in America for thirty and thirty- 
five cents. 

It needs, however, the best thrift and husbandry to 
keep such an establishment out of debt and make it 
productive. How long the land will bear cane well 
without manuring, remains to be seen. The Koloa 
plantation on Kauai is said to be running out, and no 
longer to yield a dividend to its holders. Extensive 
manuring, it is thought, will be necessary in order to 
keep up its productiveness. The high lands all along 
the south side of East Maui, from Kahikinui to Haiku, 
are very fine for farming. It is the region in which 
most of the Irish potatoes are raised for the ships at 
Lahaina, and all the wheat raised at the Islands is 
grown here. Its climate, also, is highly salubri- 
ous, and it will yet be the garden of the Sand- 
wich Islands, from which not only whale-ships, but 
the hotels of San Francisco, shall obtain their sup- 
plies. 

Were it a land of Tjrooks of water, of fountains and 
depths that spring out of valleys and hills, as well as 
a land that drinketh water of the rain of heaven, it 
would be attractive to foreign settlers above any other 
district in this group. But, owing to the cavernous, 
and cellular character of the rock, as in every volcanic 
country, there cannot form reservoirs in the high lands 
that might be feeders to wells dug lower down ; but 
the rain either at once runs off in some places on the 
surface, or percolates quickly through and settles to a 
level with the sea. 

6 



122 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Hence there are no wells in Hawaii-nei, except on 
coral bottoms nearly at a level with the ocean, as at 
Honolulu, Lahaina, and the mission station on Molo- 
kai. The springs from which natives drink all along 
the sea, especially on the leeward side of the Islands, 
are so brackish that their water is hardly better than 
a dose of salts to a man unused to it. Up in the 
mountains, it is found in pools made .by cavities in the 
rocks. 

In returning from Makawao to Wailuku, a distance 
of twenty miles, you may take a romantic path down 
to the sea by* the way of Haiku, through dells and 
groves of the silvery kukui, and the deep-green moon- 
leaved Tcoa, with its beautiful mimosa-like blossoms. 
Nearly on a level with the sea, you will cross several 
long, nicely smoothed artificial furrows, in which the 
natives used to play at ulu-maika, a kind of game of 
quoits ; and you will ride over fine white sand-hills, as 
pure and crinkled as a drift of new-fallen snow, and as 
beautiful and barren, too, as any ever seen in Araby 
the Blest. 

One sand-hill in that vicinity has been an old 
burying-ground or battle-place, now laid bare by the 
winds. Skulls, having jaws in perfect preservation, 
with thirty-four teeth sound, (showing that the savage 
practice of knocking out teeth did not prevail when 
they were inhumed,) and all the bones of the human 
body, some of them of gigantic size, lie bleaching all 
around. 



A TREASURY OF HUMAN BONES. 123 

I collected a few for the benefit of comparative anat- 
omy, and rode off with a skull dangling at my pommel, 
to give to some head-hunting phrenologist ; not, how- 
ever, without certain compunctions as to the propriety 
of transporting the dead, and separating these disjecta 
membra of our common humanity. Be it that they 
belong only to the ignobile vulgus, or to forgotten 
savage chiefs, yet are they remnants of a mortal 
that is to put on immortality, of a corruption that 
is to inherit incorruption, alike with th<5 guarded 
bones of the world's proudest kings, whose mauso- 
leum must be a pyramid or structure of marble. 

Should a passion for bone-worship ever get in vogue 
here, as in the Old World, the wily priest can meta- 
morphose some of these into good Saint Anthony's, 
and save the trouble of importation from his tomb in 
Egypt. 

Hamlet's reflections are so natural, though abrupt 
and moulded by his passion, that every one must have 
had them in turning up an unknown skull, or observ- 
ing for the first time the bleaching remains of the dead 
— u That had a tongue in it, and could sing once. This 
might be my lord such-a-one that praised my lord such- 
a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it. Dost thou 
think Alexander looked o' this fashion in the earth ? 
To what base uses may we return, Horatio ! Why 
may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexan- 
der, till he find it stopping a bung-hole ? As thus : 
Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander re- 
turneth to dust ; the dust is earth ; of earth we make 



124: LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

loam : and why of that loam, whereto he was convert- 
ed, might they not stop a beer-barrel ? 

Imperial Csesar dead, and turned to clay, 
Might stop a hole to keep the. wind away : 
O, that the earth which kept the world in awe 
Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw !" 

As you get into the valley and vega of Wailuku, you 
see numerous remains of old Jcihapais, or cultivated 
lots, and divisions of land now waste, showing how 
much more extensive formerly was the cultivation, and 
proportionally numerous the people, than now. It is 
so all through this foodful region. From accounts 
kept one year by Mr. Green, he estimated that the 
births were to the deaths as one to five ; and he says 
the population has fallen off very greatly since the time 
he was first settled here. 

In the year 1842, in the field of Rev. Lorenzo Ly- 
ons, on the Island of Hawaii, out of a population 
of five thousand six hundred, there were four hundred 
and thirty-four deaths, and ninety-eight births ; or the 
births to the deaths as one to four and two-sevenths. 
In the year 1848, the year of devastation by measles, 
the excess of deaths over births in the whole kingdom 
was estimated at six thousand four hundred and sixty- 
five, being an annual decrease of about eight per cent. 

If foreigners ever supersede the native race here, 
they may cultivate rice in the present inundated Jcalo- 
patches, and without any change. A family of China- 
men are raising it in this valley in considerable quan- 



THE GARDEN OF A MISSIONARY. 125 

tity. Two crops of rice, it is said, can be realized 
while one of kalo is ripening alongside of it. Labor 
expended upon it would, undoubtedly, be better paid 
than upon the arum escidentum, which now constitutes 
the great staple of Hawaiians. But there must be ma- 
chinery introduced to thresh and winnow it, and pots to 
boil it for eating, which few yet possess. 

The Chinamen have an Oriental w 7 ay of getting the 
grain out of the husk, w^hich is highly characteristic, 
but hardly to be described. # A bed of it, when young 
and growing, is of a fresh, bright green, that is exceed- 
ingly grateful to the eye. 

The whole valley of Wailuku, cultivated terrace after 
terrace, gleaming w r ith running waters and standing 
pools, is a spectacle of uncommon beauty to one that 
has a position a little above it. Mr. Bailey's garden, 
also, at the mission station, irrigated by a brook led out 
of this valley at a point some way up towards the 
mountain, is a place by no means devoid of taste and 
beauty. It is altogether the prettiest missionary's garden 
in the Islands, and has a considerable variety of plants, 
fruits, and flowers. 

Among these are the passion-flower, the mysterious- 
ly shrinking little sensitive-plant, and the splendid night- 
blooming Cereus, more gorgeous and ample in its corol- 
la than the Magnolia, but chastely beautiful in its color 
as the most highly prized water-lily. The girls of Mr. 
Bailey's school show no little taste in combining the 
flowers into divers wreaths and nosegays, for the adorn- 
ment of their tables and persons. « 



126 LIFE EST THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

We arrived back from Makawao in time to be pres- 
ent at an entertainment which they gave in their din- 
ing-hall, under the direction of their manager, Miss 
Ogden, to the visitors at the station. The half hun- 
dred liaumana (pupils) occupied two tables, twenty 
feet long. The visitors and resident mission families 
(of whom not the least attractive portion was twelve 
happy children) had their places at a middle one. Af- 
ter the guests had all been seated, the ringing of a little 
table-bell brought in all tfee girls, neatly dressed and 
orderly, to their seats. Then they sang a verse of a 
hymn, followed by a blessing. Supper ensued with 
great cheerfulness, concluded with giving of thanks and 
another verse of an Hawaiian hymn. 

Afterwards, out on the grassy play-ground, we had 
blind-man's-buff, and ball, and hide-and-go-seek, with 
the pretty circle of boys and girls, till we were much 
more tired, but not less pleased, than they. We should 
like to keep a child's heart, and spirits, and relish for 
innocent sports as long as we live. And when the hu- 
mor suits we will indulge in them, and try to make 
ourselves and children happy, for all the world. Quod 
delectat juventutem jucundum est viro — That which 
delights the youth is pleasing to the man. 



FIRST CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY. 127 



CHAPTER VI. 

SKETCHES OF THE BLIND PREACHER AND THE BIRTH-PLACE OF 
KAAHUMANU, IN EAST MAUI. 

There is no light without companion shade : 

There are no griefs which do not herald joys: 
In Nature's balance all are fairly weighed, 

And every thing must have its equipoise. 
Great Nature is a. choral hymn sublime, 

Its melody complete, its octaves true ; 
. Its notes all harmonize, as rhyme with rhyme : 

If there be any discords, they are few ; 

And when they cease, the rhythm flows anew. 

Anon. 

The law of compensation illustrated — Memorials of the first convert to Christianity — 
His birth and boyhood — Early deformity and loss of sight — Skill in the Hula — 
Adoption by the court as a buffoon — Abandoned to perish — Dawning of the day- 
spring — He hears of Christ — He turns to the Pono— The chiefs send for him to 
make sport — Memorable answer — Journal respecting him — Affecting attitude — Di- 
vine sovereignty exemplified — Probation for the church — Record of his examina- 
tion — First-fruits — He grows and endures — Light breaks — Light is withdrawn — 
He is thrown upon memory — He hides the Word of God — Acquires extraordinary 
strength and tenacity of memory — Labors effectively with the missionaries — Is li- 
censed to preach the Gospel — Account of one of his sermons — Power as a preacher 
—Surprise of the missionaries — Resources of illustration — Ministry in Honuaula — 
Life and death — We pass and ponder his field of labor — Supposed mental exercises 
in his blindness — We proceed to Hana — Remarkable road over clinkers — How 
made, and by whom — After-streams from the volcano — The warfare of a night — 
Victory to the Ukulele — A chief of the olden time — A dance at Kaupo — Perils by 
canoe — Sketches of the missionary station of Hana — Natural features and produc- 
tions—Riding up to the clouds — Cave where Kaahumanu was born — Two strange 
things in the kingdom of nature and kingdom of grace— A volcanic bathing-house. 

The truth, at the head of this Chapter, that there is 
evermore a law of compensation and equipoise running 
through, all things, has its comment and corroboration 
in the character and history of a remarkable man, 



128 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

through the earthly scene of whose labors I have been 
passing, in order to reach the eastern extremity of the 
Island of Maui. 

That man was the first convert to Christianity at 
these Islands, and the first who received the Christian 
ordinance of baptism, formally introducing him to the 
fellowship of the universal Church, under the Christian 
name of Bartimeus, on the tenth day of July, 1825. 
His name is on heavenly records, and it is familiar to 
the ear of Protestant Christendom, as the Blind Ha- 
waiian Preacher, or Bartimeus L, Puaaiki. 

The district of Honuaula, in East Maui, through 
which we have been travelling, was the sphere of his 
faithful labors as a minister of the Gospel for the four 
or five years prior e to his death in September, 1843. 
He was born in the densest darkness of Savage Pagan- 
ism, six or seven years after the death of Captain Cook ; 
and, when buried alive by the hand of his own mother, 
he was saved, in the providence of God, to be a chosen 
vessel to bear his name before kings. 

He was a neglected and wicked heathen boy ; and, 
between his early addictedness to the use of intoxica- 
ting awa, his filthy habits, and exposures, with scarcely 
a rag of clothing, or a hat to shield his eyes from the 
rays of the tropical sun or wind, he had nearly lost his 
eyesight before attaining to man's estate. In a brief 
sketch of him by one of the missionaries, it is said 
that he was hideously diseased ; his beard flowed 
down to his bosom ; his only garment was an old 
dirty kihei, or native kapa, thrown over his shoul- 



EARLY LIFE OF BARTIMEUS. 129 

ders: diminutive in size, he was a laughing-stock of 
the boys, and was fast wearing himself out in the ser- 
vice of Satan. 

"In these circumstances, he attracted the notice of 
Kamamalu, the favorite Queen of Liholiho, or Kame- 
hameha II., who afterwards died in England. His 
skill in the kola, or native dance, his being a hairy 
man, and other reasons not easily known at present, 
recommended him to the favor of the chiefs ; not, in- 
deed, as a companion, but as a buffoon. "When sent 
for, he made sport for the Queen and other chiefs, and 
received in return a pittance of food and of his favorite 
awa." 

On the arrival of the pioneers of the mission at 
Kailua, in the spring of 1820, Puaaiki was there with 
the chiefs, but he probably knew nothing of them or of 
their errand. Having given permission to the mission- 
aries to remain at the Islands for a season, the King 
and chiefs sailed for Oahu. Mr. Bingham accompa- 
nied them, and the blind dancer followed in their train. 
On arriving at Honolulu, he had a severe fit of sick- 
ness. In addition to this, his disease of the eyes be- 
came much aggravated ; so that, shut up in darkness, 
and unable to make his accustomed visits to the Queen, 
he was well nigh forgotten, and in danger of per- 
ishing. 

" But the time of deliverance to this poor captive of 
Satan (says the writer of the sketch above referred to) 
had now come. He was visited by John Honolii, a na- 
tive youth educated at Cornwall, Connecticut ; who, 

6* 



130 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

seeing Puaaiki lying in this pitiable situation, was 
touched with Christian compassion, and spoke to him 
of the great and good Physician, who alone could heal 
his maladies and restore his sight. Puaaiki seemed to 
rouse up on hearing tidings of so unwonted a character, 
and he eagerly inquired, c What is that V On being 
again directed to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Physician 
of souls, he said at once that he would go and hear of 
him." 

As soon as he was able to crawl out of the house, he 
accompanied Honolii to the place of worship, and heard 
for the first time the glad tidings of great joy to all 
people, that the Son of Man had come to seek and to 
save that which was lost. Nor did he listen in vain ; 
for the Lord, who had shined out of darkness, opened 
the spiritual eyesight and heart of this blind buffoon, 
to receive the truth in the love thereof. 

The change wrought in him by the Spirit of God 
soon became known, his connection with the chiefs be- 
ing one means of making it public. For, soon after the 
period of his hopeful conversion, the chiefs, having a 
drunken carousal, sent for Puaaiki to practise the li- 
centious hula, as formerly, for their diversion. The 
answer returned was, " That he had done with the ser- 
vice of sin and Satan, and that henceforth he should 
serve the King of Heaven." 

Though derided, it does not appear that he was op- 
posed in any w T ay, or prevented from seeking instruc- 
tion ; and some of the chiefs themselves, for whom 
he had made sport, soon after became kindly disposed 



CHANGE FROM THE HEATHEN TO CHRISTIAN. 131 

to the new religion, and all of them, at length, friendly 
to the Mission. 

In the early Journal of the Mission, we find it said 
of this blind refugee from Paganism, " No one has 
manifested more childlike simplicity and meekness of 
heart- — no one appears more uniformly humble, de- 
vout, pure, and upright. He is always at the house of 
God, and there, ever at the preacher's feet. If he hap- 
pens to be approaching our habitations at the time of 
family worship, w T hich has been very frequently the 
case, the first note of praise, or word of prayer, which 
meets his ear, produces an immediate and most observ- 
able change in his whole aspect. 

"An expression of deep devotion at once overspreads 
his sightless countenance, while he hastens to prostrate 
himself in some corner in an attitude of reverence. 
Indeed, so peculiar has the expression of his counte- 
nance sometimes been, both in public and domestic 
worship, especially when he has been joining in a 
hymn in his own language to the praise of the only 
true God and Saviour — an expression so indicative 
of peace and elevated enjoyment — that tears have 
involuntarily started in our eyes at the persuasion 
that, ignorant and degraded as he once has been, 
he was then offering the sacrifice of a contrite 
heart, and was experiencing a rich foretaste of that 
joy which in the world to come will rise immeas- 
urably high. 

"He is poor and despised in his person, small almost 
to deformity ; and in his countenance, from the loss of 



132 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

sight, not prepossessing. Still, in our judgment, he 
bears on him the image and superscription of Christ ; 
and if so, how striking an example of the truth of the 
Apostle's declaration : God hath chosen the foolish 
things of the world to confound the wise ; and the 
weak things of the world to confound the things 
which are mighty / and base things of the world, 
and things which are despised, hath God chosen; 
yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought 
things that are ; that no flesh should glory in his 
presence /" 

After a suitable probation, and satisfaction given to 
the missionaries of his pre23aredness, Bartimeus was 
received into the church, along with one other, a fe- 
male. The following is Mr. Richards' record of the 
examination undergone by this blind Hawaiian, at the 
time of his admission : 

Question. Why do you request to be received into 
the church ? 

Answer. Because I love Jesus Christ, and I love 
you, and I desire to dwell with you in the fold of 
Christ, and to join with you in eating the holy bread, 
and drinking the holy wine. 

Q. What is the holy bread ? 

Ans. It is the body of Christ, which he gave to save 
sinners. 

Q. Do we, then, eat the body of Christ ? 

Ans. No, but we eat the bread which means his 
body ; and as we eat bread that our bodies may not 



EXAMINATION FOR THE CHURCH. 133 

die, so our souls love Jesus Christ, and receive him for 
their Saviour, that they may not die. 

Q. What is the holy wine ? 

Ans. It is the blood of Christ, which he poured out 
on Calvary, in Jerusalem, in the land of Judea, to save 
us sinners. 

Q. Do we, then, drink the blood of Christ ? 

Ans. ISTo, but the wine means his blood, just as the 
holy bread means his body ; and all those who go to 
Christ, and lean on him, will have their sins washed 
away in his blood, and their souls saved forever in 
heaven. 

Q. "Why do you think it is more suitable that you 
should join the church than others ? 

Ans. Perhaps it is not, (hesitating.) If it is not 
proper, you must tell me. But I do greatly desire to 
dwell with you in the fold of Christ. (Here he wiped 
his blind eyes.) 

Q. Who do you think are the proper persons to be 
received to the church ? 

Ans. Those who have repented of their sins, and ob- 
tained new hearts. 

Q. What is a new heart ? 

Ans. It is one that loves God, and loves the Word 
of God, and does not love sin, or sinful ways. 

Q. Do you think you have obtained a new 
heart ? 

Ans. At one time I think I have ; and then I think 
again, and think I have not. I do not know. God 
knows. I hope I have a new heart. 



134 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Q. What makes you hope that you have a new 
heart ? 

Arts. This is the reason why I hope I have a new 
heart. The heart I have now is not like the heart I 
formerly had. The heart I have now is very bad. It 
is unbelieving, and inclined to evil. But it is not 
like the one I formerly had. Yes, I think I have a 
new heart. 

These questions were said to be all new to him, and 
answered from his own knowledge, without ever hav- 
ing committed any catechism. 

Once in the church, this blind Bartimeus continued 
to grow in knowledge, grace, and usefulness. He be- 
came a true yoke-fellow with the missionaries, learning 
constantly at their lips, and communicating what he 
learned to the people. 

In the year 1829, we find it said of him, that he was be- 
ginning to recover his eyesight a little, and was making 
a painful effort to learn to read. A missionary's wife at 
Hilo in 1830, where Bartimeus then lived as a Chris- 
tian laborer, collected a few children and taught them 
the elements of reading. Bartimeus at once applied 
for admission to the class, but was discouraged on the 
ground of his blindness, and that the school was merely 
for children. His reply was, that he was a child, and 
must insist upon attending. And, by literally digging, 
as it was said— for he was so dim of sight that he used 
to bury his face in his book — he became able to make 
out a verse in the Bible. 



REMARKABLE STRENGTH OF MEMORY. 135 

The disease in his eyes, however, suddenly assumed 
such an aggravation, that he was forced to abandon his 
design of becoming a Bible-reader, and to throw him- 
self for Scripture knowledge entirely upon the resour- 
ces of his tenacious memory. Every text and ser- 
mon he then heard were indelibly fixed in his mind, 
and fragments of Scripture at that time being printed 
in his native tongue, were made fast in his memory, word 
for word, chapter and verse, by hearing them read a 
few times. 

"The arrangement of Providence," says Mr. Green, 
" by which he was obliged to hide the word of God in 
his heart, was a wise and benevolent arrangement ; for 
he never could have become so eloquent and mighty in 
the Scriptures as he actually became, had he depended 
upon his imperfect vision, instead of his extraordinary 
memory. Still, his example at Hilo as a laborer, put- 
ting himself in the place of a little child, learning his 
letters, and spelling out sentences till he could actually 
read, was of incalculable value. It was to him, also, a 
matter of unfeigned delight, that he had been able, 
though for* a short season only, to trace with his own 
eyes the lines of the Book of God, which he loved more 
than his daily food." 

He labored with great assiduity and delight during 
the Great Revival of 1837 and '38, whei* he was pub- 
licly ordained to the office of Elder. In 1840, he was 
duly licensed, upon examination at Wailuku, as a min- 
ister of the Gospel in Honuaula, where he labored with 
great fidelity and acceptableness, up to the time of his 



136 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

decease; returning, every few weeks, to recruit his 
stores and refill his urn at the missionary granary and 
well-head, where he was always welcome, at Wai- 
luku. 

I have heard Mr. Clark narrate with great interest an 
account of a sermon which Bartimeus preached there 
at a protracted meeting, when the King was present, in 
the evening. His text was Jer. iv. 13 : Behold, he 
shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall he as a 
whirlwind. He seized upon the terrific image of a 
whirlwind or tornado, as an emblem of the ruin which 
God would bring upon his enemies. This image, said 
Mr. Clark, he presented in all its majestic and awful 
aspects, enforcing his remarks with such passages as 
Ps. Iviii. 9 : He shall take them away as with a whirl- 
wind, both living and in his wrath. Prov. i. 27 : And 
your destruction cometh as a whirlwind. Isa. xl. 24 : 
And the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. 
Jer. xxx. 23 : Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord goeth 
forth with fury, a continual whirlwind ; it shall fall 
with pain upon the head of the wicked. Hosea viii. 7: 
For they have sown the wind, and they snail reap the 
whirlwind. 

Many other passages, also, he referred to, in which 
the same image is presented, always quoting chapter 
and verse, till the missionary w T as himself surprised to 
find that this image is so often used by the sacred wri- 
ters. And how this blind man, never having used a 
Concordance or Reference Bible in his life, could, on 
the spur of the moment, refer to all those texts, was lit- 



INSTANCE OF POWER IN PREACHING. 137 

tie less than a mystery. But his mind was stored with 
the precious treasure, and that in such order, that he 
always had it at command. 

I was never, said our informant, so forcibly impress- 
ed, as while listening to this address, with the remark 
of the Apostle, Knowing, therefore, the terror of the 
Lord, we persuade men ; and seldom have I witnessed 
a specimen of more genuine eloquence. 

Near the close of his remarks, turning to the King 
and his chiefs, he said, Who can withstand the fury of 
the Lord, when he comes in his chariots of whirlwind ? 
You have heard of the cars in America propelled by 
fire and steam — with what mighty speed they go, and 
how they crush all in their w T ay. So will the swift 
chariots of Jehovah overwhelm all his enemies. Flee, 
then, to the ark of safety ! Here (added Mr. Clark) 
his appeal to the King and chiefs was bold, and 
yet persuasive, and, one would have thought, irre- 
sistible. 

Many more things might be told, and addresses quo- 
ted of this blind Hawaiian Preacher, over the field of 
whose ministry in Honuaula I could not ride, without 
feeling that it was. dignified as with the footsteps of an- 
gels, for having been the scene of the labors of this 
man of God. I j)raised, as I passed, the compensating 
sovereign grace of God, who, first choosing so unprom- 
ising an instrument as this dwarfed and deformed out- 
cast of humanity, from whom wisdom was at one en- 
trance quite shut out, did so mai vellously make up to 
him the loss of outward sense'by inward seeing. The 



138 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



Oxford lines, attributed, without warrant, to Milton, 
might have come from him : 



I am old and blind ! 
Men point at me as smitten by God's frown ; 
Afflicted and deserted of my kind, 

Yet I am not cast down. 

I am weak, yet strong ; 
I murmur not, that I no longer see ; 
Poor, old, and helpless, I the more belong, 

Father Supreme ! to Thee. 

I have naught to fear : 
This darkness is the shadow of thy wing ; 
Beneath it I am almost sacred — here 

Can come no evil thing. 



*&■ 



Visions come and go ; 
Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng ; 
From angel lips I seem to hear the flow 

Of soft and holy song. 

Two days and nights of continued mule-riding and 
canoeing from Wailuku, through the bishopric of Mr. 
Green and the Blind Preacher, have brought us, worn 
and weary, to the quiet Station of Hana, East Maui, 
where visitors, or haoles of any sort, seldom make their 
w r ay. It is too inaccessible, and far from any port, for 
sailors to get to ; and the way is too rough and long for 
common travellers and explorers. 

Yet it is a way not devoid of interest and novelty, 
especially that part of it which runs from Honuaula to 
Kahikinui and Kaupo ; for it is a road built by the 
convicts of adultery, some years ago, when the laws 



REMARKABLE ROAD OVER CLINKERS. 139 

relating to that and other crimes were first enacted, 
under the administration of the celebrated chief Hoa- 
pili, in whom was the first example of a Christian mar- 
riage. 

It is altogether the noblest and best Hawaiian work 
of internal improvement I have anywhere seen. It is 
carried directly over a large verdureless tract, inunda- 
ted and heaved up by an eruption from the giant cra- 
ter of Hale-a-ka-la ; and when it is considered that it 
was made by convicts, without sledge-hammers, or 
crow-bars, or anv other instrument but the human 
hands, holding a stone, and the Hawaiian Oo, it is 
worthy of great admiration. It is as great a work 
for Hawaiians, as digging the Erie Canal to Ameri- 
cans. 

A Yankee engineer, to stand on either side of that 
vast field — and yet, by reason of its pits, and ravines, 
and blown-up hills, and dislocations, not a field, but a 
chaos of blackened lava — would be confounded and put 
to his wit's end to know where to begin and carry a 
road. 

Were the waves of the ocean, in a tempest, when 
wind and current, or the former swell, were in con- 
flict, to be suddenly congealed to the depth of twenty 
or thirty feet, and the water below to be then in a mo- 
ment let off, or vanish, the bed of old Ocean would not 
exhibit such a rugged, confused, and unnavigable waste 
as these tracts of broken la vat 

Or, as I have seen it somewhere illustrated, if the 
furious rapids of a mighty river had been turned 



140 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

into ink, and the cold of a winter's day at the poles 
applied, and every part had become instantaneously 
congealed in the position where it was just then whirl- 
ing, tossing, foaming, and tumbling, while millions of 
flint-like particles, shivered from the mass by the sud- 
denness and intensity of the operation, lay scattered 
about, it might perhaps present an aspect like that of 
this old current from a volcano. 

In attempting to account for it, it seems sometimes 
as if a new eruption of intensely heated lava had 
forced and eaten its way under a tract of solidified mat- 
ter, and at length, by the expansive force of rarefied 
gases, and steam, and the vast pressure at its fountain, 
had suddenly burst, and up-heaved into a million frag- 
ments the great superincumbent mass. Then let there 
follow an indefinite period of earthquake topplings and 
convulsions, and there might be produced the phenom- 
ena exhibited. 

Straight over such a tract, crime itself, under the en- 
ergetic management of Hoapili, has built a commodious 
road from Honolulu to Kaupo. Like the old man in 
" The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," we almost 
" blessed it unawares," as our mules safely trotted or 
cantered by moonlight over the path it had made. 
The imaginary bridge that Sin and Death built over 
Chaos for Satan, — 



Over the foaming deep high-arched, a bridge 
Of length prodigious, broad as the gate, 
Deep as the roots of hell, — 



CONFLICT WITH THE UKULELE. 141 

is not to be compared to this real one which Sin has 
wrought on Maui. 

It is made by running two parallel walls about 
twenty feet apart, then partially macadamizing the 
space between, and covering it with grass or stubble. 
For fifteen or twenty miles it runs almost like a rail- 
road, only turning a little now and then to avoid some 
gigantic boulder, or forced into a zigzag to get over 
some precipitous ravine, which it w^ould seem as if an 
impetuous after-stream of devouring fire from the 
mountain had ploughed and eaten through, till it 
reached the sea. 

We arrived at half past twelve the first night at a 
village where we thought to have stayed until day; 
but the kamaainas (inhabitants) were all away, and so 
we had to lay down as we were, supperless, (our man 
with food having fallen behind,) upon the round-stone 
floor of the meeting-house. Hard as it was, it would 
have been a grateful resting-place, but for the warfare 
of merciless fleas, (ukulele]) who, when they found what 
we were, and what a royal supper they might make on 
the blood of two Jiaoles, set to so fiercely, that, after 
many vain struggles, we were forced to enter a nolo 
contendere, and leave the honors of the field to our in- 
satiate foes. 

We decamped about three, and rode on to ISTuu, in 
Kaupo, where they hospitably entertained and lomilo- 
mied us, and I drowned several flying detachments of 
the ukulele tribe, by a bath in the sea. 

We saw there the high-chief Kealiiahonui, of Kauai 5 



142 LIFE IN" THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

one of the former husbands of the imperious Queen 
Kaahumanu, of whom Stewart writes, as far back as 
1823, that " he has a handsome face, and, in the 
classic drapery of a yellow satin malo, and purple 
satin Jcihei, he presents as perfect a model of manly 
beauty as ever challenged the efforts of pencil or 
chisel." 

Twenty-one years have not altered his fine propor- 
tions, nor bent his noble, athletic form, although the 
classic malo and kihei have given place to European 
jacket and trowsers. He was there from the Island of 
Kauai, to oversee the repair of a schooner of his, which, 
in the drunkenness of all her company, w r as not long 
since run upon the rocks. 

Our last stage for the day was to the chief village of 
Kaupo, as far as mules could go, where we supped and 
dined all under one, at the house of the teacher, on a 
boiled chicken. A little rain, after the setting in of 
evening, made a beautiful lunar rainbow up among the 
picturesque hills and mountains, so bright as to show 
its parhelion, or mock-rainbow. 

The Tcci7)iaainas of this place seemed much unused to 
foreigners. Several of the women were abroad with 
nothing but a narrow native pan around the waist. 
The children of the school, upward of a hundred, were 
interesting, as they always are. Some of the little 
barbarians set up a hula for my amusement towards 
evening, which was the first time I had ever seen a na- 
tive dance. It consisted merely of successive jumps 
with both feet at once, to a regular harsh sound from 



PERILOUS SAILING BY CANOE. 143 

the lungs, and occasional slapping or drumming of the 
hands upon the bare breasts and sides, together with 
distortions of the countenance and gesticulations with 
the arms. 

At early dawn of the next day, the fierce trade, 
which always blows at Kaupo, having somewhat aba- 
ted, we started to go round a range of high jpalis (pre- 
cipices) by a little canoe. She took a wave, on first 
launching, from stem to stern, that completely drench- 
ed my limbs, and was ever after receiving w r ater over 
the sides, that kept one of us constantly bailing. It 
was only about fifteen feet long, and fifteen or sixteen 
inches deep, and barely wide enough for a man to 
sit in. 

We had seen a man on shore, before leaving, whose 
foot had recently been bitten short off a little above 
the ankle by a shark at that place ; and the idea of 
being capsized there was by no means a comfortable 
one.. But through the good care of our God, w^e pass- 
ed safely around the jpalis, and, by careful watching 
on the part of the people where we landed, and of 
our three paddlers in the canoe, we seized a time be- 
tween the waves, and w^ere paddled and drawn up 
high and dry. 

Having to climb a precipice, limbered per force our 
nether limbs, which were somewhat stiffened after a 
two hours' immersion in brine. A ride of six or seven 
miles on horseback, after getting on dry apparel, 
brought us safely to Hana, the former home of my 
missionary travelling companion, Mr. Rice, where the 



144: LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



quiet rural beauty, freedom from dust, and grateful 
verdure, invite to meditation and repose. 

How appropriate and expressive is that Hymn of Na- 
ture by Peabody, written, perhaps, in circumstances 
like those in which we are now surveying the beauties 
of Creation in the Heart of the Pacific ! 

God of the fair and open sky ! 

How gloriously above us springs 
The tented dome, of heavenly blue, 

Suspended on the rainbow's rings ! 
Each brilliant star, that sparkles through, 

Each gilded cloud, that wanders free 
In evening's purple radiance, gives 

The beauty of its praise to thee ! 

God of the world ! the hour must come, 

And Nature's self to dust return ; 
Her crumbling altars must decay ; 

Her incense-fires shall cease to burn ; 
But still her grand and lovely scenes 

Have made man's warmest praises flow ; 
And hearts grow holier as they trace 

The beauty of the world below. 

The mission history and statistics of this Station of 
Hana may be given in a few words. It was first taken 
in 1838, by Messrs. Ives and Conde, with their wives. 
They labored under the disadvantage which the first 
occupants at rainy stations have always incurred, of 
having to live for several years in native grass houses ; 
by which, together with severe missionary labor in 
schools, the health of Mrs. Ives was so broken, that 
they were compelled to remove to the dry Station of 
Kealakeakua, on Hawaii. 



HISTORY AND STATISTICS OF THE STATION. 145 

Their first houses, also, were consumed by fire, with 
a great part of their furniture and goods. Two com- 
modious stone dwelling-houses are now erected, and 
ten or twelve acres of excellent land given by gov- 
ernment, are nearly inclosed. 

To those who love to be out of the world, and who 
have health and heart to devote themselves to mission- 
ary work, the location presents many attractions. And 
for those who would like to visit there, a man need not 
be the son of a prophet to predict a cordial reception, 
pleasant society, and hospitable fare. 

Mr. Rice, who was located here in 1841, to have 
charge of the schools, and who has himself taught an 
interesting school of boys, is removed to Punahou, to 
be devoted there to the children of the mission. He 
had built a fine house, which he has never occu- 
pied, and was just getting ready to labor with ad- 
vantage. Rev. Mr. Whittlesey and wife have auspi- 
ciously entered into his labors ; and, with a new teach- 
er, a new religious interest has been awakened among 
the people. 

Mr. Conde is pastor of the native church, which 
numbers five hundred members, having been organized 
in 1838 with fourteen. The walls of a new stone 
meeting-house are commenced, which is to be one hun- 
dred and fifteen feet long, and forty-eight wide. Many 
of the stones are from an old heiau. It is to be built 
by the people and pastor, and by contributions from 
other churches. The population of Mr. Conde's dio- 
cese (which from extreme end to end is sixty miles) is 

7 



146 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

about eight thousand. Seventeen hundred children are 
in schools. The missionary makes among them three 
or four tours a year. 

The medical wants of the people are many, and to 
supply them is a great tax upon the pastor. The room 
where he meets the sick, and transacts business with 
the natives, he turns, when necessary, into a hospital. 
If an adult or child comes from a distance, that needs 
to be treated medicinally, he has a bed spread for 
them, and there administers proper food and medicine, 
until they are well or die. It is a practice which at all 
the stations might save many lives, especially of young 
children. 

But it would necessarily involve an outlay of time 
and money that can rarely be commanded. A physi- 
cian, to itinerate between Hana and Wailuku, and the 
Island of Molokai, is very much needed, and could 
do great good. If the Board send out celibates, 
they had better be physicians, who could go untram- 
melled from station to station, to assist and heal the 
sick. 

The physical features of this region are more like 
some parts of the windward side of the great Island 
of Hawaii, than any thing that is to be seen elsewhere 
in the group. Cascades far up in the mountains, four 
or five thousand feet, and leaping precipices at once 
of eight hundred feet ; numerous conical, green-sward 
hills, the work of old volcanoes ; gentle slopes and 
copses, and woody dells ; tracts of lava scarcely at all 



PRODUCTIVENESS OF LAVA GROUNDS. 147 

disintegrated, yet covered with a luxuriant growth of 
grass, wild cane, the feplant, wauke^ noni, and the 
hala-tvee, (pandanus.) 

The long leaves of the latter (which is a species of 
the palm, somewhat like the Palmetto of South Caroli- 
na) furnish the material for thatching ; and the body of 
the male tree, which is very hard, and here grows tall 
and large, is used for posts. 

Benignant Nature, on the windward side of these 
Islands, where there is much rain, soon mantles over 
the scarred path of an eruption with verdure. Mr. 
Coan told me that sweet potatoes were already grow- 
ing in Puna, in the pathway of the lava of 1840 ; the 
natives having made basins in some parts of the loose 
lava, by taking out a few of the stones, putting in a lit- 
tle sand and grass, dropping a potato, and then covering 
it with dry grass. It soon makes for itself a mold, and 
shoots out its vines, and they raise* in this way the most 
mealy potatoes. 

These, and upland Tcalo and bananas, are at present 



* The method of cultivating Sweet Potatoes at the Sandwich Isl- 
ands may very properly give a hint to agriculturists elsewhere. It 
answers more nearly to the process sometimes called mulching, than 
to any other practice known in the tillage of England or America. An 
American horticulturist thus describes the application of a similar pro- 
cess to the cultivation of gooseberries : 

" The English gooseberry has always hitherto mildewed here ; and I 
have been familiar with bushes of the best sorts for many years, with- 
out ever being able to gather any perfect fruit. 

" I have lately mulched some old bushes which had hitherto borne 
this worthless fruit. I covered the surface of the ground under them 



148 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

the chief agricultural products of this region, although 
almost any thing may be made to grow, the soil being 
a comparatively recent decomposition of lava, exceed- 
ingly productive all the way up from the sea-side to the 
top of the mountain, the ascent of which is here so 
gradual and smoothly carpeted with green, that you can 
ride on horseback quite up to the clouds. 

Directly opposite the mission premises, which are 
only forty or fifty rods from the sea, there rises a high 
volcanic bluff four hundred and fifty feet, being the 
easternmost point of Maui, called Kauwiki. In a 
cave at its base, which I have visited, the now world- 
known Queen Kaahumanu, whose portrait faces the 
title of this volume, first saw the light, in a time of 
war. 

In one of his preaching tours through this region, 
before there was a resident missionary, Mr. Armstrong 
called at this spot, and, from his acquaintance with the 
facts of history, he very naturally penned his medita- 
tions in these words :• — " An individual is born at Hana, 
the very end of the earth, (for the house stood on the 
very extremity of the island, and not two rods from the 
water's edge,) of high, but heathen parents ; brought up 
from childhood in. perfect familiarity with all that is 
corrupting, degrading, hardening, and darkening; con- 



a foot deep with wet, half-rotten straw, extending this mulching as the 
branches grew. 

il Imagine my delight at finding the gooseberries on the bushes so 
mulched ripening off finely, the fruit twice as large as I have ever seen 
it before, and quite fair and free from mildew." 



THE TWO EXTREMES OF HEATHENISM. 149 

sequently, became one of the worst of human kind — 
haughty, filthy, lewd, tyrannical, cruel, wrathful, mur- 
derous, and almost every thing else that is bad. So 
she lived for perhaps fifty years ; and then, while sit- 
ting Queen of this nation, feared and flattered by all, 
the grace of God reached her heart, and she put off the 
old man, with his deeds. She reigned a few years as 
a Christian, constraining the very enemies of truth to 
admire her integrity, her regard for the poor, and her 
wisdom as a ruler, and died in 1832, praising God and 
the Lamb." 

Some of her last words audible were, as translated, 
thus : — " I will go to Jesus, and shall be comforted. 

Lo, here am I, Jesus : 
Grant me thy gracious smile I" 

Well may we say, Wonderful, wonderful, to such an 
epitome of history as hers was from her cave to her 
grave ! In this remarkable Hawaiian Queen, and the 
no less remarkable Hawaiian Preacher, we have exem- 
plified at once the moral Heart of the Pacific, as it was 
and as it is. Two things here are almost equally 
strange in the Kingdom of Nature and the Kingdom 
of Grace. One is, that the volcano of depravity should 
ever have become extinct so entirely, and at about 
the same time, in those two extreme ends of heathen- 
ism, the despot Kaahumanu, and the slave Bartimeus ! 
The other is, how, why, or when the belching volcano, 
at the foot of which Kaahumanu was born, ceased to 
burn. 



150 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Eruptions of scoria, slag, cinders, and pumice, have 
evidently issued from both its sides, and flowed over 
in strata that are plainly marked where they are broken 
off, on the side next the sea. You descend into one of 
its craters by a winding way made by earthquake and 
art in its readily yielding, disintegrated sides ; and 
there at the bottom is a fine covert basin of water for 
bathing, with a beach of volcanic sand, defended from 
the outrageous surf by a barrier of lava-rock, against 
which the sea is ever thundering, and tossing over its 
giant arms and briny spray. 

The top of the cone, in olden time a fort, is now the 
dormitory of a large flock of sheep and goats, which you 
may see clambering up its sides every evening, and 
scampering down in the morning. Sometimes they 
get tumbled over the precipice into the crater, and are 
pan loa i Tea make, as the natives say, or quite used 
up ; that is, taught in the same way that Cowper says 
he taught the viper in his Colubriad : 

With outstretched hoe I slew him at the door, 
And taught him never to come there no more. 

In clear weather, a fine view is obtained from Hana 
to the southeast, across the channel, of the broad-back- 
ed Island of Hawaii, distant about thirty miles. Its 
three great pyramids, or more properly domes, of Mau- 
na Kea on the east, Mauna Loa on the south, and Mau- 
na Hualalai on the west, loom up magnificently in the 
rising or setting sun. 

We were intending to have gone across by canoe, 




PROJECTED ROUTE THROUGH HALE-A-KA-LA. 151 



to see again the mission family at Kohala, and thence 
over to Waimea by land, to embark in a schooner 
from Kawaihae either for Lahaina or Oahu. But the 
sea is not calm enough for natives to venture, and 
may not be for several weeks. We purpose, therefore, 
to return to Wailuku by a route yet unexplored by 
white men, through the colossal crater of Hale-a-ka-la, 
or the House of the Sun. The Palace of the Sun, 
therefore, we may next enter, in order to learn what 
rarities in furniture and equipage are to be found 
there, 

" Right against the eastern gate, 
Where the great sun begins his state ; 
Robed in flames, and amber bright, 
The clouds in thousand liveries dight." 



152 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ADVENTURE, ESCAPE, AND ARRIVAL AT MOLOKAI. 

He that in venturous barks hath been 

A wanderer on the deep, 
Can tell of many an awful scene, 

Where storms forever sweep. 
O God ! thy name they well may praise 

Who to the deep go down, 
And trace the wonders of thy ways, 

Where rocks and billows frown ! 

Mrs. Hemans. 

We embark in the double canoe — Sudden catastrophe — Men swept overboard — A 
special providence — How we are saved — A traveller's hymn — Emotions of gratitude 
and impulses of obedience — Behavior of the natives — Effect of familiarity with 
danger — Remark of Butler — The psalm of life — The fatal sequel of another disas- 
ter — Conflict with the sharks — They win the day— The raft rises — Few escape— We 
gain the reef—Lagoons for fish — How to make abstract numbers concrete— Reefs 
described— Spiritual analogies and lessons derived— Rules for the navigator— The 
Divine Pilot — Ocean of futurity — Site of the Molokai Mission — Head-quarters of 
iEolus — A missionary's grapery — The two vineyards, natural and moral — Division of 
labor — Church and school — Industrial enterprise — The maids of Molokai — Native 
costume versus the foreign— Court fashion and rules of dress — The queen's way of 
conformity — Criticism on the fashionable habiliments of the sex — Honest remon- 
strance and satire by Dana. 

A change in my route little expected, finds me at 
another island, seventy miles by canoe from Hana, in- 
stead of ranging through the crater of Kale-a-ka-la. 
To Him, whose unseen mighty arm defends and up- 
holds us, when we can take no care of ourselves, be 
all the praise that our grave has not been made upon 
the coral bottom of the deep, between Molokai and 
Maui. 



SUDDEN CATASTROPHE MEN OVERBOARD. 153 

We left liana' about half past seven in the morning, 
with nine men, in the large double-canoe belonging to 
the Molokai missionary station. The wind was very 
strong, nearly aft, and the canoes light, so that with 
main-sail, and a kind of fore-stay-sail, we shot around 
the windward side of East Maui with great swiftness, 
admiring the numerous cascades that leap into the 
ocean from those precipitous lava cliffs. 

"When, however, we had encompassed the island to 
the point of departure for Molokai, and were about 
one-third of the way across the channel, or six miles 
from land on either side, so tremendous a wave and 
gust of wind struck our canoes as nearly to capsize 
them, throwing the windward canoe almost out of wa- 
ter, and the leeward under, and instantly carrying 
three men overboard from my side. 

Though the waves had been all along very high, and 
frequently breaking over the forward part of the ca- 
noes, so as to keep the men bailing, yet, from confi- 
dence in the skill of the natives, I did not apprehend 
much danger ; and, having been very sea-sick, was 
dozing at the moment of the disaster, one hand being 
made fast to a rope and the frame-work of a mat-screen 
that was put up against the wind, the other arm around 
my life-preserver. 

Alarmed by the shock and cry of the natives, and 
a dash of salt water, I opened my eyes upon the scene 
of disaster just as the men were rolling off before me 
into the billowy deep. I have seldom or never looked 
danger so full in the face — 



154 L i FB IN THE SANI)WICH ISLANDS _ 



Danger, whose limbs of giant mould 
What mortal eye can fixed behold ? 

By instinctively catching with my loose hand to the 
plank that constitutes the raised platform between the 
canoes, the life-preserver slipped from me after the 
men, but I was enabled to hold on till the canoes' 
nearly regained their equilibrium, in the trough of the 
towering wave. It was unaccountable, except on the 
ground of that Special Providence which Scripture 
and experience unite in proving, that we were not irre- 
coverably swamped and lost, and our canoes torn asun- 
der. Our deliverance surely was not owing to the bub- 
ble that bore us, for its thin sides would have burst but 
for the bands of the Almighty, and left us helpless 

To sink into the depths with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. 

But, in God's goodness, something better was before 
us. Our men quickly rallied from the first stunninc f 
surprise and terror ; the wrinkled and bronzed old na- 
tive, our captain, acquitted himself nobly after his first 
fearful auwe, a howl of lamentation and terror peculiar 
to Hawaiians, which no one that has once heard ever 
forgets. Little as I could say to them in their own 
tongue, that little was cheering, and my hands I could 
use for bailing. 

Sails and mast were soon taken down ; the canoe 
sunk nearly to the water's edge, was hove-to and light- 
ened of its load of water, and two of the missing 



PROVIDENTIAL ESCAPE NATIVES' GRATITUDE. 155 

men soon got aboard, through their matchless skill 
in swimming. But we had gone so far to lee- 
ward of one of them, that it was good part of an 
hour before we could work up to him against the 
heavy sea. 

At length, however, the men tied all the rope in the 
canoe to one of the light wili-wili rollers, and one of 
them launched out with it to meet the struggling 
swimmer ; and they were soon both safe aboard, ex- 
claiming upon the pomaikai o Tee alexia (the goodness of 
God) in their deliverance. In fifteen or twenty minutes 
more, the life-preserver was recovered, and a book 
w r hich I had supposed lost, was found in the b'osom of 
one of the men that had been overboard, he having 
caught and kept it there all the while he had been in 
the water. I shall keep it as a prized memorial of this 
narrow escape. 

The canoe being got under way again with diminish- 
ed canvas, two hours more of anxious sailing, with a 
boisterous wind and heavy sea, brought us to an opening 
in the coral reef which extends along the inward side 
of the island ; and I breathed more freely as we ran 
through the surf, and swept into comparatively still 
water, where we ran before the wind again for ten miles 
with great velocity, till we reached the station, gladly 
greeted by friends that had been feeling no little anx- 
iety on our behalf. 

It was only He who commandeth and lifteth the 
stormy waves, who holdeth the winds in his fists, who 
measureth the waters in the hollow of his hand, that 



156 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



brought us through peril to dry land, in those frail hol- 
lowed logs. 

Tis to His power we owe our breath, 
And all our near escapes from death. 

I never repeated those lines of Addison and Wesley 
with more significancy — 

When by the dreadful tempest borne, 

High on the broken wave ; 
They know Thou art not slow to hear, 

Nor impotent to save. 

When passing through the watery deep, 

I ask in faith His promised aid, 
The waves an awful distance keep, 

And shrink from my devoted head. 
Since Thou hast bid me come to thee, 

Good as Thou art, and strong to save ; 
I'll walk o'er life's tempestuous sea, 

Upborne by the unyielding wave. 
Dauntless, though rocks of pride be near, 
And yawning whirlpools of despair. 

To sing rightly « The Traveller's Hymn," one needs 
to have met with « hair-breadth escapes by flood and 
field," to have seen the kind interpositions of Provi- 
dence, and to have felt underneath him in peril the 
arm of Omnipotence. We meet with a thousand de- 
liverances that we never know of, from straits and 
perils that we do not see, both in our natural life, and 
in the moral and religious life of our souls as pilgrims 
through a world of shipwrecks, temptations, pit-falls, 
and snares. What watchful, recollective pilgrim is 
there, that in the observance of providences, and the 



LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FROM DANGER. 157 

habitual review of life, is not often singing with, thank- 
fulness and grace in his heart, — 

A thousand deaths I daily 'scape, 

I pass by many a pit ; 
I sail by many dreadful rocks, 

Where others have been split. 
Whilst others in God's prisons lie, 

Bound with affliction's chains, 
I walk at large, secure and free 

From sickness and from pains. 

One such preservation from palpable peril as that 
we have now experienced, makes the full heart feel 
deeply God's goodness, and if not sadly hardened, or 
far out of the way, to gush with unusual emotions of 
gratitude and impulses of obedience. 

It is good for a Christian, or any man, to be arrested 
and made thoughtful by such exposures and providen- 
tial deliverances, that he may consider his latter end, 
and the measure of his days, what it is, to fcnow 
how frail I am, and to ask himself, Am I ready for 
the surprise of death ? Out of sight, it is too apt with 
us to be out of mind ; and a man needs to be often 
met with startling providences, in order to make him 
realize his own exposedness, and to enforce the practi- 
cal necessity of being ready ; for let death once come, 
and, 

Ready or not ready — no delay ; 
Forth to his Judge's bar he must away. 

And yet it is a melancholy fact, account for it as we 



158 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

may, that familiarity with danger and death seldom 
produces a softening, monitory effect, except upon the 
mind of a Christian, but rather induces a moral hardi- 
ness and effrontery, that steels the mind against lessons 
of mortality, and casts an ominous gloom upon the 
prospects of the soul. 

There is a remark of Butler in the "Analogy," which 
I have never seen exemplified except in the case of 
those, whose habits have been formed as the children of 
God. It is this — that at the same time our own expo- 
sure to danger, and the daily instances of men's dying 
around us, give us daily a less sensible passive feeling 
or apprehension of our own mortality, such instances 
greatly contribute to the strengthening a practical re- 
gard for it in serious minds ; that is, to forming a habit 
of acting with a constant view to it. 

Let me never get so obtusely used to danger and 
death, as not to mind it; but may I always live looking 
upward and recollective, 

" As ever in my great Task-master's eye ;" 

calmly self-possessed and ready, through faith in my 
Lord, for his summons, whether it shall come in sun- 
shine or storm, in a form grateful or appalling to the 
natural man. Death will then have no sting, the 
grave no victory. And a sepulchre in the sea, till the 
sea give up its dead, will be as safe and easy, as to die 
among kindred, and lie peacefully under the sod, till 
the morning of the resurrection. 

A true poet has interpreted, in the Psalm of Life, 



SAD STORY OF ANOTHER DISASTER. 159 

what the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist, 
and what is often brought to remembrance by the es- 
capes and vicissitudes of our mortal pilgrimage : 



And thou, too, whosoe'r thou art, 

That readest this brief psalm, 
As one by one thy hopes depart, 

Be resolute and calm. 
O fear not in a world like this, 

And thou shalt know ere long- 
Know how sublime a thing it is 

To suffer and be strong. 
Let me, then, be up and doing 

With a heart for any fate ; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 

Learn to labor and to wait. 



The channel we have crossed, and all the passages 
between these Islands, are often the scene of disasters 
in native canoes, A Frenchman attached to the 
French sloop of war Bonite, on a visit to this Archi- 
pelago in 1836, tells the following story, which we have 
heard for substance also from a missionary : 

One clay, a native, accompanied by his wife and two 
small children, put off in a canoe from the northern 
.point of Lanai, with the design of landing on the 
southern part of Molokai, a distance of seven or eight 
leagues. When he had put to sea the weather was 
fine ; but suddenly a dark cloud blackened the sky, a 
gale commenced, and the sea became very rough. For 
a long time the skill with which the Islander guided 
his frail skiff in the midst of the waves preserved it 



160 



LIFE EST THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



from being wrecked ; but at length a sea broke the out- 
rigger, and the canoe capsized. 

The children were too young to be able to swim. 
He seized them at the moment when the sea was about 
to swallow them up, and placed them upon the canoe, 
which, being made of light wood, floated, although 
bottom up. Then he and his wife, swimming at its 
side, undertook to urge it along to the nearest shore ; 
they being then near the middle of the channel. 

After many hours of fatiguing exertion, and when 
they had almost reached the shore, they met a very 
strong current, which urged them back into the open 
sea. To struggle against the force of the current would 
have been to expose themselves to certain death ; they 
therefore decided to direct their canoe towards another 
part of the island. Yet the night came on, and they 
began to feel cold. 

The woman was the first to complain of fatigue ; but 
the desire so natural to escape death, and the sight of 
her children, whose life depended upon the preserva- 
tion of her own, gave her courage, and she continued 
to swim near her husband, pushing the canoe before 
them. Soon the poor children became fatigued; for 
they could not long cling to the round and polished 
surface of the canoe without a continued effort, and 
they were also chilled with cold. At length they re- 
linquished their hold, and fell, one after the other/into 
the sea. 

Their parents seized them and placed them again 
upon the canoe, striving, at the same time, to encour- 



PARENTAL LOVE AFFECTING ISSUE. 161 

ige them. But their little hands could no longer re- 
tain their grasp, and the sea engulfed them for the 
third time. It was no longer necessary to think of 
preserving the canoe ; the parents, therefore, took the 
children upon their backs and swam towards the land, 
which was scarcely visible in the darkness. 

An hour later, the woman discovered that the child 
which she was carrying was dead, and she broke forth 
into bitter lamentations. In vain did her husband per- 
suade her to abandon the child and to take courage, 
pointing out to her the shore, which now seemed near. 
The unhappy mother would not separate from her life- 
less child, and she continued to carry her precious bur- 
den until she felt her strength nearly exhausted, when 
she told her husband that she must die, for she could 
swim no further ; yet, notwithstanding her husband's 
earnest entreaties, she would not relinquish her bur- 
den. 

He then endeavored to sustain her with one hand 
and to swim with the other ; but nature could not pro- 
long the struggle, and she disappeared beneath the 
waves. The husband continued to swim on in sad- 
ness, the desire to save his surviving child alone keep- 
ing him up. At length, after many hours of unspeak- 
able hardship, and when almost dead himself, he 
reached the shore. But it was only to fall senseless 
upon the sand, when he discovered that the darling 
boy on his back was dead. 

In this condition he was discovered at daybreak by 
some fishermen, lying on the sand. By their atten- 



162 



LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



tions he revived, but died soon after from grief and 
suffering, having been in the water eighteen hours. 

It was only a few years ago, in a part of Polynesia 
further south than these Islands, that a company of 
chiefs and people, thirty-two in number, were passing 
from one island to another, in a large double-canoe like 
that in which we have just escaped such peril. They, 
too, were overtaken by a wind, the violence of which 
tore their canoes from the horizontal or curved spars 
by which it will be remembered, in our previous de- 
scription* of a double-canoe, that I have said they are 
united. It was in vain to endeavor to right them or 
empty out the water, for, without out-riggers, they 
could not prevent their incessant overturning. 

As their only resource, therefore, they collected the 
scattered spars and boards, and, with the help of cord 
taken from the wreck, they constructed a raft, on which 
it was barely hoped they might drift to land. The 
weight of the whole number, however, who were col- 
lected on the raft or hanging to it, was now so great as 
to sink it below the surface, so that those upon it often 
stood above their 'knees in water. Hence of course 
they made little progress towards land, and they soon 
became exhausted with fatigue and hunger. 

In this defenceless condition they were attacked by 
a number of prowling sharks. One after another was 
seized and devoured by the rapacious monsters, or 



* Island World of the Pacific, p. 248. 



THE FISH-PONDS OF MOLOKAI. 163 

pulled away by them, until three or four only remain- 
ed ; and the raft, lightened of its load, rose to the sur- 
face of the water, and put them beyond the reach of 
the terrible jaws of their destroyers. Delivered thus 
from the sharks, the few that survived were providen- 
tially carried ashore by the current and tide, to tell of 
the dreadful deaths of their fellow- voyagers. 

Ourselves happily saved from such a conflict, and no 
lives lost in our disaster, w^e have been circumnaviga- 
ting the Island of Molokai, and with comparative safe- 
ty, on the reef; observing how the coast is all along 
lined with immense fish-ponds of salt water, to the ex- 
tent of twenty-five or thirty miles. These are made by 
merely walling-in many acres of the coral reef on the 
seaward side, and then stocking them with spawn and 
little fish. 

Beyond these the reef extends still half a mile or 
more, with its shallow whitened water, and then there 
is a crest of foaming breakers, made by the impetuous 
waves striking upon the outside of the reef. Beyond, 
the w T hite caps foam and glisten all the way across the 
boisterous channel, ten miles wide, to Maui ; which you 
must pass in a frail canoe, in order to get again into the 
range of the world. 

The lagoons for fish were made under the despotism 
of ancient times, and are capable of affording a very 
great supply. When Rev. Lorrin Andrews was teach- 
ing arithmetic to the first class at Lahainaluna, there 
was one man studying the notation table rather bright- 



164 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

er than the rest, and of a practical turn, who could not 
see, for the life of him, what was the use of such high 
numbers, over a hundred thousand or million. Up to 
this he could get along very well, making them in 
some way concrete. 

But one day, as he was reckoning units, tens, hun- 
dreds, thousands, &c, "Stop," said he, "I've got it: it 
will do for the head-man of Molokai to reckon his fish 
by." His millions had become concrete, and notation 
w T as ever after as plain sailing as through the smooth 
water on the reef of his native Molokai. 

This reef has furnished me an instructive analogy, 
which I cannot forbear presenting. When we stand 
upon the shore, on a level with the reef, and look far 
away seaward, over the water with which it is covered 
like a vast lagoon, we cannot tell what are its dimen- 
sions or limits, where there is deep water or where it is 
shoal. But when we climb one of the steep mountain- 
sides, and look down from that commanding elevation 
upon the wide reef, and the still wider boundless ocean 
all around, it is then that we can see clearly where the 
reef begins and where it ends ; where the surf breaks, 
and where the blue sea-line begins ; and we can distin- 
guish even the different hues of separate fields of cor- 
al, and the outline thereof below the surface, through 
the different shades of the water in which it is 
all hid. 

Just so, in a whale-ship at sea, the man at the main- 
top-mast head is always the first to discover when the 
ship is entering shoal water, from a change in the color 






NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL ANALOGIES. 165 



or shade of the all-surrounding fluid, only discoverable 
at first from that great height. 

And in illustration of the same it may be added, that 
once, on a calm, clear day, when at a point twelve hun- 
dred feet above the level of the Mediterranean Sea, on 
the top of the Eock of Gibraltar, I recollect to have 
seen at its base some Genoese fishermen dragging their 
nets, and exposing their persons in the water, all un- 
aware of the dangerous vicinity of three huge prowl- 
ing sharks, w T hich could be seen with wonderful clear- 
ness through our spy-glass, swimming around the rocks 
underneath, and seeming to us every moment as if 
they would dart up and seize the unsuspecting fisher- 
men. 

Now the spiritual lesson we have learned from all 
is this : that, in order to have a just view of the trials, 
and temptations, and perils of probation ; of the points 
of safety and of danger, and the limits of each, and the 
lines where they meet, and the gracious providences 
that are ever stepping between us and destruction, we 
must stand on the eminence of Mount Zion above. 
From the top of some commanding cliff in Eternity 
w T e must be able to look backward over the troubled 
sea of this life, and onward upon the calm ocean of 
Eternity into which it has passed, before w T e can judge 
justly of its hardships and encounters, and the Divine 
meaning of them, or perceive the greatness and good- 
ness of our often miraculous deliverances, or estimate 
aright the skill and wisdom of the Divine providential 
Pilot that never quits our helm. 






166 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Must we not, then, quietly leave the management of 
these precious barks of immortality to infinite Wisdom 
and Love, navigating through faith alone, by quick- 
sand and breakers ? What else, indeed, can we do, 
when the Unknown Future to which we are bound, is to 
all men what the Equatorial Coast of the Brazils is to 
the mariner, who makes his land-fall just at night, in 
the rain and howling wind, and sees the dense clouds 
gathering heavier and blacker, and the lurid lightnings 
flashing with louder thunder over those vast regions 
dimly before him, somewhere in the deep shades of 
which he is to find a port ? 

"We must wait till the morning of the resurrection 
for the clouds to clear away and the sun to shine, sail- 
ing, meanwhile, by faith's chronometer, just as that 
navigator must lay-to and stand off, or go sounding on 
his dim and perilous way by lead and line, till the 
night and storm are past, and sunlight opens to him 
the glories of Nature in the tropics, even as the resur- 
rection dawn will to the faithful soul the glories of 
Eternity. 

That glorious but now unknown world of the future, 
along with its other revelations, will disclose the good 
that is now doing by the Missionary Station planted at 
Molokai. It is very near the sea, on the level land* be- 
tween the shore and the mountains. This interval of 
arable land is from one-quarter to half a mile wide. 
Valleys that might be made fertile, run up further be- 
tween the hills, in one of which a better site than the 
present was chosen, and buildings commenced. But 



STRENGTH OF THE MOLOKAI TRADE-WINDS. 167 

they were torn down by a creature of Governor Adams, 
to whom the land belonged. It would have been far 
preferable to the present spot, as farther removed from, 
and yet giving a much finer view of, the sea, and as 
being partially screened, also, by the hill-side from vio- 
lent blasts. 

If Hawaiian mythology had had a god of the winds, 
his excellency would certainly have been assigned to 
Molokai, where the trades could have rocked him from 
New Year's morn to Christmas eve. He must have 
had his table in some one of those huge holes to wind- 
ward, or he could hardly eat the meat of his sacrifices 
before it would have been blown out of his teeth. 
The trades rush by here as if they had just broke 
prison from the cave of JEolus, and were flying away 
at the top of their speed, afraid of being caught. 

For a man to keep his breath, or his hat on, in riding 
against them, he must have a long wind and little 
head ; two conditions that so seldom meet in the same 
person, that most who come here at first lose both. 
And it is well if their patience does not go, too, 
in waiting, wind-bound, a time to get away. Pleas- 
ant society and- hospitable fare will, however, gen- 
erally prove a good antidote and hold-fast to the 
latter. * 

Notwithstanding the uniformly high winds, Rev. Mr. 
Hitchcock, one of the missionaries, has succeeded in 
training a fine grapery, by erecting a high screen to- 
wards the northeast. We are now luxuriating on the 



168 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

delicious fruit, whose flavor is almost equal to the uvas 
of Andalusia. Wine is made from it to supply the 
communion-table; or, rather, an unfermented syrup, 
which, diluted with water, forms a more fitting ele- 
ment for the Supper than either alcoholic wine or sim- 
ple water. 

The number of communicants here is somewhat over 
six hundred, in a population roughly estimated at about 
five thousand. They have the best-made meeting-house 
(excepting the Bingham stone church in Honolulu) that 
I have seen in Hawaii-nei. The material is stone, three 
long windows in each of the two sides, doors in the 
two ends and side facing the sea, a gallery in the end 
opposite to the neatly made pulpit, for the choir, with 
two small windows for light and ventilation. 

The walls are one hundred feet long, fifty wide, and 
eighteen high to the ceiling. The roof is of thatch, 
and in the old Dutch style, thus saving gable-ends, 
which it is not easy here to make secure, and at the same 
time look well, of stone. 

In the process of building it, the people have con- 
tributed five hundred dollars in cash, besides getting 
the timber from the mountain, procuring and burning 
the lime, plastering the walls, and putting on the 
roof. 

In June of 1850, there was acknowledged from the 
Molokai church,* by the Treasurer of the American 



* The entire contributions on the Island of Molokai, for the year 
1850, are as follows : — 






CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE MOLOKAI CHURCH. 169 



Board, the sum of five hundred and seventeen dollars 
and fifty cents, to constitute several persons in America 

Support of Pastor $420 00 

Kohala Meeting-house 102 00 

Monthly Concert 501 50 

French Protestant Missions 23 00 

Relief of the Poor 40 00 

Church-bell at Kalaupapa 166 00 

Repairing Meeting-house. 120 00 

Materials and Labor, at cash 400 00 

Repairing Pastor's House 25 00 

$1,191 50 

Here is a lesson in liberality that deserves to be studied. It will as- 
sist in doing this, to know that the population of the island is less than 
3500, and to call to mind how few years it is since they began to 
emerge from the deep poverty of barbarism. Look now at the vari- 
ous items. Consider especially that noble one for rebuilding the pros- 
trate house of worship at Kohala, and also the avails of the monthly 
concert. Here are respects in which we may bring ourselves into 
comparison with them ; for the appeal in behalf of that afflicted church 
reached us, and what we gave the last year at the concert is also on 
record. But let us not content ourselves with mere admiration of their 
" good works," but, " provoked by their zeal," let us " sow bountifully," 
that He who " loveth a cheerful giver" may in turn " make all grace 
abound towards us." 

The whole amount of contributions at all the Islands for the year 
1850, is $1213.14. This includes $237 for the French Protestant Mis- 
sion. The most of it given from " their deep poverty." Truly, " the 
grace of God bestowed on them" has " abounded unto the riches of 
their liberality." See how expansive is their benevolence ; how heart- 
ily they responded to that appeal from France, thus showing their 
ability to distinguish between the nation that would crush them, and 
those in that nation who were one with them in Christ ; yet not the 
less giving an example of a noble superiority to national prejudices. 
At the same time, let it be observed that they do not forget to " pro- 
vide for their own ;" and that they open their hand liberally to assist 
their pastors in the calamities that befall them. — Journal of Missions, 
March, 1851. 

8 



170 LIFE m THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

and the Sandwich Islands members of the American 
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. 

The congregation here is ordinarily five or six hun- 
dred, well dressed and decorous in behavior, seated 
generally on rude settees. The most interesting and 
hopeful part of the congregation are, as always, the 
children and youth, of whom the proportion here is 
probably greater than in any other field in these Isl- 
ands. There are twelve hundred in the day-schools, 
and all of them are required to be present at the Sab- 
bath-schools. 

At the Station are three different classes on the Sab- 
bath, in the Ai o Tea la, or Daily Food : children in the 
morning, adults at noon, and a class of unmarried 
young persons just before the sermon in the afternoon. 
The singing of the native choir is very respectable, 
without any help from the pastor, being trained by a 
graduate from Lahainaluna. 

The resident missionaries are called invalids, but 
they perform an amount of labor (at least the pastor) 
in preaching, pastoral care, and supervision of schools, 
that would be deemed quite enough for robust well 
men at home. 

Miss Brown has a school of eight or ten girls, whom 
she is teaching to card and spin cotton, and to weave 
and knit.* It is hoped they will learn by it a habit of 



* The common schools of Molokai have been generally organized af- 
ter an industrial plan, for purposes of utility, and to instil the principles 
and habits of industry in Hawaiian youth; and the following is the 
substance of their report for 1850, which may exemplify what is doing 



RELATIVE INTELLIGENCE OF HAWAIIAN FEMALES. 171 

industry, and a fondness for work, so as not to be will- 
ing hereafter to loll and to lounge, like most Ha- 
waiian women, who, in civilization, intelligence, and 
all the proprieties of social life, are far below the 
men. 

When you see a company of young Hawaiian girls, 
from ten to fourteen, with bright, sparkling eyes, faces 



by practical working missionaries, in the line of educational and social 
improvement at the Heart of the Pacific : 

The schools are divided into male and female departments. The fe- 
male department meets in the morning for regular school at half past 
eight, and continue at their books till half past eleven. At twelve the 
male department meets for the same purpose, and continue at their 
studies till three P. M. During the afternoon, the girls, under lunas 
chosen by themselves, engage in light suitable work for those who wish 
to employ them, and at prices agreed upon between the lunas and the 
employer. 

This money is kept by said luna till the end of the quarter, and then 
equally divided among the members composing the division. 

The males, on the contrary, begin work at daylight and work till about 
eleven, when the first bell rings for them to prepare for school. This 
plan has now been in operation several years, and, it is thought, with 
excellent results. 

On Molokai are 929 scholars in all ; from these deduct for Catholic 
scholars, who do not generally have a working department, 76, leaves 
the number 853. These 853 scholars have, during the year 1850, re- 
ceived for their labor the nice sum, in cash, of $1556. 56^. 

Of this sum, the station school at Kaluaaha has earned $490.25. 
This is exclusive of sums earned by the scholars in their own time after 
three P. M. 

The number of scholars at Kaluaaha is 206, making the average earn- 
ing of each child in the school $2.38 ; but if we take from that number 
the 60 or 70 scholars who are too small to work, we shall find that each 
working scholar has really earned over $3.25. 

The 16 Roman Catholic scholars have only reported $9.50 as the pro- 
ceeds of their labors. 



172 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

full of sportiveness and glee, and their forms expand- 
ing like rose-buds, you wish they might always look so, 
and you think what a pity it is they should ever become 
the gross, sensual creatures that so many of them turn 
into in a few years. 

There is needed at every station, to operate upon 
Hawaiian females, a school like Mrs. Coan's at Hilo, 
or the Female Seminary at Wailuku : to teach them 
notions of propriety, to form habits of industry, and 
to make them suitable as wives and mothers. Multi- 
ply such schools, and they would do incomparably 
more than all the silly orders of the Cabinet and King 
for the ladies to appear only in tight dresses and cor- 
sets. 

On the score of modesty alone, to say nothing of its 
economy and comfort, the present dress of Hawaiian fe- 
males, something like a lady's loose morning-gown, is 
both decorous and comely. The hasty rage which some 
foreigners seem to have at once to Europeanize and 
make court-like the Hawaiian government and dress, 
is, we cannot help saying, alike unwise and ridiculous. 
If it does not swamp the nation, annihilate whatever is 
distinctively Hawaiian, and give paramount ruinous as- 
cendency to foreign interests and influence, it will be 
strange. 

It is said the Queen was once disciplined in the 
church for drinking awa. But she alleged, on trial, 
that she was drinking it to reduce her portly person 
to the fit of the tight dress prescribed by the tyranny 
of court-fashion. 



THE MODERN HABILIMENTS OF WOMAN. 173 

Now we say, give strait jackets to maniacs, and 
leave corsets and small-clothes to the rouged harlots 
of the Opera ; but for the women of Hawaii, both 
modesty and taste would be less offended to have 
them resume something like the old heathen costume 
of the pau and Jcihei^ than to be squeezed into the garb 
of Paris belles. 

The highest authority in America for taste and pu- 
rity in all that appertains to woman — to woman as she 
is and woman as she should be — has said of the fash- 
ionable modern habiliments of the sex, — 



Your dress has made the form by nature given, 

Unlike aught ever seen in earth or heaven. 

Where, girl, thy flowing motion, easy, sweep, 

Like waves that swing, nor break the glassy deep ? 

All hard, and angular, and cased in steel ! 

And is it human ? Can it breathe and feel ? 

The bosom, beautiful of mould, alas ! 

Where, now, thy pillow, youth ? (But let it pass.) 

And shapes in freedom lovely ? — I will bear 

Distorted forms, leave minds but free and fair. 

'Tis all alike conventional : the mind 

Is tortured like the body, cramped, confined : 

A thing made up, by rules of art, for life ; 

Most perfect, when with nature most at strife : 

Till the strife ceases, and the thing of art, 

Forgetting nature, no more plays a part ; 

Sees truth in the factitious ; — pleasure's slave — 

Its drudge, not lord ; in trifles only grave. 

With etiquette for virtue, heart subdued, 

The right betraying, lest you should be rude ; , 

Excusing wrong, lest you be thought precise, 

In morals easy, and in manners nice ; 

To keep in with the world your only end, 

And with the world to censure or defend ; 



174 



LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



To bend to it each passion, thought, desire ; 

With it genteelly cold, or all on fire, 

What have you left to call your own, I pray ? 

You ask, What says the world, and that obey ; 

Where singularity alone is sin, 

Live uncondemned, yet prostrate all within. 

You educate the manners, not the heart, 

And morals make good breeding and an art. 

R. H. Dan, 




Sandwich Islands Double Canoe. 



THE MOLOKAI GARDENS OF CORAL. 175 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE CORAL MASONRY AND CORALS OF MOLOKAI AND OTHER 
PARTS OF THE ISLAND WORLD OF THE PACIFIC. 

" There, in the furthest deserts of the Deep, 
The coral worm its architecture vast 
Uprears, and new-made islands have their birth." 

Curious work of Zoophytes— Sub-marine gardens described — Living specimens ex- 
hibited — Letting a crab out of prison— How the corals grow— Theory for the forma- 
tion of a coral island — The tumuli of a buried continent— Evidence of a re-elevatory 
process — Geological phenomena not accounted for — Observations of Williams, the 
martyr of Eromanga— Effect of electricity in precipitating the partides of lime in 
sea-water — Instances adduced — The part it may have in the formation of reefs — 
Views of Sir David Brewster examined — Mixture of fancy and fact — Experiments of 
Peyronnel — Philosophical analysis — Secrets of Nature's laboratory — Results of coral 
architecture — Astonishing amount of matter solidified— Observations of Captain 
Flinders— Conditions necessary to the perfection of coral— The coral builders watched 
— Work described — Banks reared — World-matter — Half-way Island — Coral forma- 
tions of Rimatara— Honolulu reef— Mediterranean and Red Sea coral— Rate of 
growth— Effect of light — Agents that reduce it — Indian Ocean coral— Appearance of 
a reef between the tides— Millions of worms observed — Facts gathered from navi- 
gators—Coral of prose and of poetry— Moss corals by the microscope — Zoophytic 
tribes classified by the Geologist of the U. S. Exploring Squadron— Scientific deduc- 
tions— Fejee Island reefs described — Vast size of individual specimens— Notices of 
the Kingsmill group— Vast depth of soundings off the reef— Uses of coral— Natural 
and aesthetic ends served. 

The island of Molokai is well worth, a traveller's 
visiting, despite the risk of crossing that boisterous 
channel, for the curious and beautiful corals he may get 
there, and the near view he may have of the living 
coral-beds, in all their sub-marine luxuriancy. You 
may go out upon the reef in a canoe, and sail over the 
gay gardens, and in only a foot or two of water, may 



176 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

gather some of the most exquisite specimens of marine 
animalculic vegetation ever seen. 

The kinds, too, are uncommonly unique and various. 
In one mass, and disengaged at a single reach and effort 
of the arm, there will sometimes be five or six different 
species of this wonderful formation cemented together. 

The colors are various, and sometimes exquisite. 
Now and then you can point out a piece to a native, 
and he will bring it up all blushing with purple or blue, 
which you would give any thing to preserve in a cabi- 
net with that delicate Tyrian tint. Sometimes it is like 
colored confectionery crystallized, with all the hues of 
the rainbow. But the tints of sunset clouds are not 
more fading and evanescent than the rosy blush of 
those beautiful sea-flowers, when once plucked from 
their aqueous bed. 

It is only the coralline forms, or the different ways 
in which those ingenious little architects make their 
coral groves to grow, that can be preserved. And then 
those little radiations and branches are so brittle, and 
the microscopic finish of the crystalline structure is 
sometimes so nice, that in washing off the extraneous 
matters, and packing them up for friends at home, you 
are almost sure to break and mar the most perfect 
specimens. 

It is very curious to observe how a family of corals 
will grow together and intermarry, till you can trace 
the pedigree from sire to son, through a coral ancestry 
for many generations. There is a species which the 
natives call ana^ of which one of the missionary boys 



REMARKABLE SPECIMENS DESCRIBED. 177 



here has a rare specimen to send to one of his brothers 
in America. 

The ana grows somewhat like the head of a mush- 
room, on a flower-stalk put forth from the parent stock. 
If you call it a flower, its petals are innumerable white 
scales, growing erect, and separate each from its bed 
like the seeds of a sun-flower. These are of all sizes, 
from that of a button to the crown of a hat. The speci- 
men referred to is a family tree, the trunk bearing its 
infant and youthful sprigs, of appropriate sizes through 
adolescence to maturity, when some of the adult anas 
are having little miniature grandsons of the third gen- 
eration. 

The theory which avers that corals do not grow vig- 
orously in less water than two or three fathoms, is quite 
disproved by the growth at Molokai. We have seen 
and collected some fine living specimens, where the 
water was not more than two feet deep, and where the 
reef must be sometimes laid bare in low water. 

In a specimen obtained by Mr. Andrews, only a few 
days ago, there was found snugly inclosed in one of the 
cups formed by the little branches locking in with each 
other like locked hands, an interloping crab. There he 
was, nicely caught and encased by the growing coral, 
as between the palms of two locked hands, precisely as 
toads are sometimes found in rocks, or the solid heart 
of trees. How long he had been imprisoned there by 
the busy little builders upon those immense reefs, we 
could not tell ; but the boys thought it must have been 

8* 



178 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

in some Rip Van Winkle sleep, if such things ever 
happen in the life of crabs. . 

Coral is most abundant on the leeward of the Islands, 
and the larger reefs are only found there. It is said to 
be ascertained by observation, that a uniform tempera- 
ture of at least seventy-six degrees is most favorable to 
their growth. The great thickness of the reefs is sup- 
posed to be caused by the gradual and long-continued 
subsidence of the original shelf of coral, while the sur- 
face is maintained at the same level as at first by the 
unceasing additions made by the polypes. 

According to this theory, the islands of Polynesia 
once formed avast equatorial continent, which, through 
volcanic agency as its probable cause, has subsided, 
and left the present islands as grave-stones to com- 
memorate its former existence. 

Be this as it may, besides the overflow from volcanic 
eruptious, a re-elevatory process must have been going 
on for ages in the islands of Hawaii, in order to account 
for the existence of well-defined coral, on this island of 
Molokai, for instance, five hundred feet above the pres- 
ent level of the sea. 

The same has been found, also, according to Mr. 
Andrews, on Maui ; and natives say that on one of the 
mountains of Kauai, four thousand feet above the sea, 
there is a bed of coral and coral sand, and in it a spring 
of water. 

On the road from Lahaina to Wailuku, there is lava 
three or four hundred feet above the sea, covered with 
a deposit of lime from one-eighth to half an inch in 



PECULIAR FORMATIONS NOT ACCOUNTED FOR. 179 

thickness, as if made by successive coats of whitewash, 
precisely as I have frequently seen stones at the sea- 
side coated with carbonate of lime, which is, undoubt- 
edly, a precipitate from the sea- water. 

In ravines, and on the sides of precipices where the 
strata of successive volcanic eruptions are broken off, 
there is often to be found a perpendicular vein of car- 
bonate of lime, that seems to have run into fissures, or 
to have been deposited there when in a state of solution, 
from what source it is not easy to tell. That it is lime 
cannot be doubted, for I have frequently seen it effer- 
vesce at pouring on sulphuric acid. There is also, on 
this island, one thousand feet above the sea, a locality 
of a mineral, very like to white flint, and which one 
might suppose to be crystallized coral, though it will 
not effervesce with the strongest acids. 

While on the subject of corals, it is in place to men- 
tis an inference which "Williams makes in his Mission- 
ary Enterprises, in regard to the formation of corals, 
from the fact of their being carbonate of lime always in 
solution with salt water. His remarks are, that, " as 
corals are carbonate of lime, and as they are found to 
exist only in warm climates, where, by the process of 
evaporation, there is abundance of materials supplied 
for these insects to build with, instead of secreting the 
substance, or producing it in any other way, they are 
merely the wonderful architects which nature employs 
to mould and fashion the material into the various and 
beautiful forms which the God of nature designed it 



180 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, 

should assume. In the Museum at Liverpool, among 
the specimens of coral, there is a branching piece of 
coral which is a calcareous crvstal, formed in the 
evaporating house of the salt-works of the King of 
Prussia." 

So, in regard to sea-shells, instead of saying that the 
animals secrete the calcareous coverings which they 
inhabit, he thinks that they emit or secrete a gluten, to 
which the calcareous particles adhere, and thus form 
the shell. Let there be a chemical precipitation of the 
minute calcareous particles floating in sea-water by any 
means, and there might be formed a reef; agreeably to 
the experiment, in which the passing of a stream of 
electric fluid through water having calcareous and sili- 
cious particles in solution, produces stones. 

The lightning of tropical regions, and the electric 
fluid engendered by sub-marine and other volcanoes 
which abound in the South Seas, may thus produce an 
effect adequate to the formation of those wonderful and 
invaluable structures. This is a much more rational 
theory to account for the existence of the immense coral 
reefs and coral islands of the Pacific, than that alluded 
to above, which supposes them wholly the work of saxi- 
genous polypes or lithophytes. 

The so-called saxigenous, or rock-making polype, 
builds upon the reefs, and cements his singular tree- 
imitating structures to them ; but this agency, we can- 
not but think, is altogether inadequate to the formation 
of immense islands. The more solid and compact tex- 
ture of the coral rock, often stratified, would also lead 



PEOCESS OF CONSTRUCTING A CORAL REEF. 181 

one to ascribe to it a different origin from the corals, 
whose exact and beautiful cellular structure evinces an 
animal agency as plainly as the honeycomb of a bee- 
hive. 

It is therefore quite unnecessary to suppose the cal- 
careous coral rocks either secreted by insects, or the 
exuviae of the insects, or the dead bodies of the insects 
themselves ; but they are simply carbonate of lime pre- 
cipitated from the sea-water which holds its particles in 
solution, mixed and cemented together wdth broken 
shells and pieces of corals. The coral, properly so called, 
(that which is to be seen in museums and cabinets,) is 
what is built upon this rock as a foundation, by the 
coral insect. 

These observations made on corals as seen in the beds 
where they grow, at the Sandwich Islands, and recorded 
on the spot, have induced me to compare the results 
thus obtained with what has been written on this sub- 
ject by certain, late authors. 

In a recent article from the North British Review, 
by Sir David Brewster, he says : — " Our readers, no 
doubt, are aware that the coral rocks which form islands 
and reefs hundreds of miles in extent, are built by small 
animals, called polypus, that secrete, from the lower 
portion of their body, a large quantity of carbonate of 
lime ; which, when diffused around the body, and de- 
posited between the folds *of its abdominal coats, consti- 
tutes a cell, or polypidom, orpolypary, into the hollow of 
which the animal can retire. The solid thus formed is 
called a coral, which represents exactly the animal itself. 



182 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

" These stony cells are sometimes single and cupped ; 
sometimes ramifying like a tree, and sometimes grouped 
like a cauliflower, or imitating the human brain. The 
calcareous cells which they build remain fixed to the 
rock in which they began their labors, after the animals 
themselves are dead. A new set of workmen take their 
places, and add another story to the rising edifice. The 
same process goes on from generation to generation, 
until the wall reaches the surface of the ocean, where it 
necessarily terminates. 

" These industrious laborers act as scavengers of the 
lowest class ; perpetually employed in cleansing the 
waters of the sea from impurities which escape even the 
smallest Crustacea ; in the same manner as the insect 
tribes, in their various stages, are destined to find their 
food by devouring impurities caused by dead animals 
and vegetable matter in the land. 

" Were we to unite into one mass the immense coral 
reefs, three hundred miles long, and the numberless 
coral islands, some of which are forty and fifty miles in 
diameter ; and if we add to this all the coralline lime- 
stone, and the other formations, whether calcareous or 
silicious, that are the works of insect labor, we should 
have an accumulation of solid matter which would com- 
pose a planet or a satellite — at least one of the smaller 
planets, between Mars and Jupiter. And if such a 
planet could be so constructed, may we not conceive 
that the solid materials of a whole system of worlds 
might have been formed by the tiny, but long-continued 
labors of beings that are invisible !" 



VIEWS OF SIR DAVID BREWSTER. 183 

Now here is a mixture of fancy and fact, which a 
single personal inspection of a coral reef by the learned 
theorizer would have very considerably modified. He 
would become satisfied, I think, that the great reef it- 
self, as it appears at the Sandwich Islands, so far from 
being the work of insect labor alone, is the basis which 
Nature herself lays, in the way before referred to, by 
the precipitation of carbonate of lime, through electrical 
agency, from sea-water, for the coral insect to build 
upon, and garnish with his beautiful structures. This 
basis, it is true, is increased from time to time by the 
decay of the coral fabrics, but it is never reared by 
them alone from the depths of the sea. 

Coral was generally deemed a vegetable substance 
until the year 1720, when M. de Peyronnel, of Mar- 
seilles, commenced and continued for thirty years a 
series of observations, by which he ascertained the coral 
to be the production of a living animal of the polypi 
tribe. The general name of zoophytes, or plant-animals, 
has since been applied to these marine insects, though 
sometimes called lithophytes, or stone-plants. They 
occur most frequently in the tropical seas, and decrease 
in number and variety as we approach the poles. 

" The various species of these animals (says Dr. Mil- 
ner, Gallery of Nature, p. 381) appear to be furnished 
with minute glands, secreting gluten, which, upon exu- 
dation, convert the carbonate of lime in the ocean, and 
other earthy matters, into a fixed and concrete sub- 
stance, twisted and fashioned in every variety of shape. 



184: LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

The formation of coral is one of those chemical pro- 
cesses in the great laboratory of nature, which the skill 
of man has not enabled him either to imitate or to com- 
prehend; bat the fact is clear, that large masses of 
solid rock are formed by those diminutive living agents, 
sea-workers, toiling and spinning to the music of the 
waves, whose constructions are capable of resisting the 
tremendous power of ocean, when most agitated by 
winds and tempests, and ultimately become a secure 
habitation for man himself." 

The coral substance appears to bear the same relation 
to the insect, as the shell of a snail or of an oyster does 
to either of those animals, without which they cannot 
long exist ; and it is upon the death of the animalcules 
that their separate structures become firmly knit to- 
gether by some mysterious cement, and serve as the 
basis for the erections of fresh races, which, as they 
die off, increase the growth of the firm and solid fabric. 

"Millions of millions thus, from age to age, 
With simplest skill, and toil unweariable, 
No moment and no movement unimproved, 
Line laid on line, on terrace terrace spread, 
To swell the heightening, brightening, gradual mound, 
By marvellous structure climbing towards the day. 
Each wrought alone, yet all together wrought, 
Unconscious, not unworthy instruments, 
By which a hand invisible was raising 
A new creation in the secret deep. 
Omnipotence wrought in them, with them, by them ; 
Hence, what Omnipotence alone could do, 
Worms did." 

Captain Flinders, while surveying the coasts of New 



OBSERVATIONS OF CAPTAIN FLINDEES. 185 



Holland, examined the coral formations in process there ; 
and his remarks seem to me to give the true theory of 
coral reefs, if there be added the fact of the natural 
precipitation of carbonate of lime from the sea-water in 
which it is held in solution, and the formation of the 
cement by electrical agency and heat. 

" It seems to me," he writes, " that when the animal- 
cules, which form the coral at the bottom of the ocean, 
cease to live, their structures adhere to each other by 
virtue either of the glutinous remains within, or of some 
property in salt water; and the interstices being gradu- 
ally filled up with sand and broken pieces of coral 
washed by the sea, which also adhere, a mass of rock 
is at length formed. Future races of these animalcules 
erect their habitations upon the rising bank, and die in 
their turn to increase this monument of their wonder- 
ful labors. 

" The care taken to work perpendicularly in the early 
stages, would mark a surprising instinct in these dis- 
criminative creatures. Their wall of coral, for the most 
part, in situations where the winds are constant, being 
arrived at the surface, affords a shelter, to leeward of 
which their infant colonies may be safely sent forth ; 
- and to this, their instinctive foresight, it seems to be 
owing that the windward side of a reef, exposed to 
the open sea, is generally, if not always, the highest 
part, and rises almost perpendicular, sometimes from 
the depth of two hundred, and perhaps many more 
fathoms." 

Commander "Wilkes, of the United States Exploring 



186 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Squadron, sounded only one hundred and fifty fathoms 
off from the perpendicular coral cliff of Aurora Island, 
but found no bottom with a line of that length. 

To be constantly covered with water seems necessary 
to the continued existence and activity of the coral 
animalcules. It cannot, indeed, be perceived that they 
are living at all, except in holes upon the coral reef 
itself that are below low-water mark, where we have 
often watched the progress of their rising structures, 
when we could not detect with the closest inspection 
the busy little builders themselves ; yet imagination 
has been busy in tracing their work as JEneas was, under 
the cloud, at young Carthage : 

Miratur molem iEneas, magalia quondam ; 
Miratur portas, strepitumque, et strata viarum 
Fervet opus. 

Almost as fast as they build, the coral sand, always 
suspended and washed about in sea-water, fills up the 
little cells, and pores, and interstices of the minute 
masonry, while broken remnants of dead coral and other 
matter thrown up by the sea are caught and cemented 
to the growing wall, and form a solid mass with it as 
high as the common tides reach. When that limit is 
attained, and the surface of the reef is now out of, or 
even with the water, the labor of the coralligenous 
zoophyte is over, the sea gradually recedes, the rampart 
rises, the limed debris or fragments upon it, being now 
rarely covered with water and dried by the sun, lose 
their adhesiveness and become brittle remnants, form- 



GRADUAL FORMATION OF AN ISLAND. 187 

ing what is called sometimes a Jcey upon the top of the 
reef, from the Spanish Oayo. 

This new bank is, of course, not long in being visited 
by sea-birds ; salt-plants take root upon it, branches of 
floating sea-weed are caught and entangled by it ; mus- 
cles, and crabs, and echinuses, and turtles, and krakens, 
perhaps crawl upon it and leave their shells, and a soil 
begins to be formed. By and by a cocoanut, or the 
drupe of a tropical Pandanus, is thrown ashore ; land- 
birds light on it and deposit the seeds of shrubs and 
trees, and augment it, perhaps, with a layer of guano. 
Every high-tide, and still more, every gale, adds some- 
thing to the bank in the shape of matter -wrecks, or- 
ganic or inorganic. At length appears the blue hum- 
mock of a tropical island, and last of all comes man to 
take possession, cast there by Providence, and glad not 
to have the sea his grave, or in quest of discovery and 
gain. 

I have repeatedly seen and stepped upon progressive 
and unfinished parts of creation like this, where, as 
traced by a poet-observer of the Processes of Nature — 

The atom thrown from the boiling deep, 
The palm-tree torn from its distant steep, 
The grain by the wandering wild-bird sown, 
The seed of flowers by the tempest strown, 
The long kelp forced from its rocky bed, 
And the cocoanut, on the waters shed, — 
These gather around the coral's lee, 
And form the isle of the lonely sea. 

There is an island in Australia called Half-way Isl- 
and, from the fact, we believe, that nature does not yet 



188 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

seem done with it, or to have finished its creation ; yet 
above the reach of the highest spring-tides or the wash 
of the surf in the heaviest gale. A navigator who has 
visited it says, that he distinguished in the coral rock 
which forms its basis, the sand, coral, and shells for- 
merly thrown up and cemented together by the lime 
always held in solution by sea-water. Small pieces of 
wood also, pumice-stone, and other extraneous bodies 
which chance had rydxed with the calcareous substances 
when the cohesion began, were inclosed in the rock, 
and in some cases were still separable from it without 
much force. 

We have observed the same at the lonely South Pa- 
cific island of Eimatara, over whose verdure-clad coral 
remains we once had a joyous day's ramble. The 
same is true, also, of other reefs at the Sandwich Isl- 
ands, where, as at Honolulu for instance, blocks of it 
are quarried from exposed parts, and used for building 
purposes, (to which it is well adapted,) besides being 
burned into lime. 

From an admirable work on corals, published in the 
Scientific and Natural History series of the London 
Tract Society, and containing a number of very accu- 
rate wood-cuts, representing different species of coral 
polypi and corallines, we learn that coral is found in 
different parts of the Mediterranean and Red Sea, not 
only attached to rocks, but also to movable bodies, as 
stone vases and fragments of lava. It is also discovered 
at different depths, but thrives best in a warm and sunny 



. ■ 



AGENTS OF GROWTH AND REDUCTION. 189 

aspect. Light operates powerfully in its growth, and its 
deposition by the living creature is by no means rapid. 

It is thought to require eight years for a stem of 
Mediterranean or Red Sea coral to obtain the average 
height of ten or twelve inches, in water from three to 
ten fathoms deep ; ten years if the water is fifteen 
fathoms ; twenty-five or thirty years if the water is a 
hundred fathoms ; and at least forty years if the depth 
is one hundred and fifty fathoms. 

It is more beautiful in shallow water, where the 
light reaches it, than where an immense body, absorb- 
ing most of the luminous rays, deprives it of their 
curiously modifying influence. Having attained its 
full growth, it is soon pierced in every part by worms, 
(which attack even the hardest rocks,) loses its solidity 5 
and but slight shocks detach it from its base. The 
polypi perish, and the coral stem, by attrition with the 
sea-worn pebbles, as it rolls along, is soon reduced to 
powder, or coral sand. 

Captain Hall says of the reefs in the seas about Loo 
Choo, Indian Ocean, what I have often heard Ameri- 
can whalemen say of those in the Mozambique chan- 
nel, which is the region of ocean most prolific in cu- 
rious shells, that when the sea has left a reef for some 
time between the tides, it becomes dry, and appears to 
be a compact rock, exceedingly hard and ragged. But 
no sooner does the tide rise again, and the waves be- 
gin to wash over it, than millions of worms protrude 
themselves from holes on the surface, which were be- 
fore quite invisible. 



190 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

" These animals (he says) are of a great variety of 
shapes and sizes, and in such prodigious numbers, that in 
a short time the whole surface of the rock appears to be 
alive and in motion. The most common of the worms 
was in the form of a star, with arms from four to six 
inches long, which it moved about with a rapid motion 
in all directions, probably in search of food. Others 
were so sluggish, that they were often mistaken for 
pieces of the rock ; thes'e were generally of a dark color, 
and from four to five inches long, and two or three 
round. 

" When the rock was broken from a spot near the 
level of high water, it was found to be a hard, solid 
stone ; but if any part of it were detached at a level 
to which the tide reached every day, it was discovered 
to be full of worms, of all different lengths and colors : 
some being as fine as a thread, and several feet long, 
generally of a very bright yellow, and sometimes of a 
blue color ; while others resembled snails ; and some 
were not unlike lobsters and prawns in shape, but soft, 
and not above two inches long." 

Probably it was with the minute description in mind 
of some closely observing navigator in Eastern seas, 
that the accomplished author of the finely conceived 
Poem called " The Pelican Island," adds this as a se- 
quel to the coral-forming process which he has been 
most accurately describing : 

A point at first 
It peered above those waves ; a point so small, 
I just perceived it, fixed where all was floating ; 



MICEOSCOPIC MOSS CORALS. 191 

And when a bubble crossed it, the blue film 

Expanded like a sky above the speck : 

That speck became a hand-breadth ; day and night 

It spread, accumulated, and ere long 

Presented to my view a dazzling plain, 

"White as the moon amid the sapphire sea ; 

Bare at low water, and as still as death, 

But when the tide came guggling o'er the surface, 

'Twas like a resurrection of the dead : 

From graves innumerable, punctures fine 

In the close coral, capillary swarms 

Of reptiles, horrent as Medusa's snakes, 

Covered the bald-pate reef. Then all was life, 

And indefatigable industry : 

The artisans were twisting to and fro 

In idle-seeming convolutions ; yet 

They never vanished with the ebbing surge, 

Till pellicle on pellicle, and layer 

On layer, was added to the growing mass. 

Ere long the reef o'ertopped the spring-flood's height, 

And mocked the billows when they leapt upon it, 

Unable to maintain their slippery hold, 

And falling down in foam- wreaths round its verge. 

There is a variety of coral, of microscopic minute- 
ness in its structure, of which the naturalists Ehrenberg 
and D'Orbigny have discovered hundreds of fossil spe- 
cies ; and their minute shelly cases enter into the 
composition of chalk-beds, compact mountain lirne- 
c stone, the sea-sand of Europe, the Mauritius, the Sand- 
wich Islands, and the sands of the Libyan desert, 
even. 

Some idea of the minuteness of these fossil moss 
corals may be formed from the fact, that in the finest 
levigated whiting multitudes are present, without hav- 
ing suffered change in the preparation of the chalk. 



192 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Only let the microscope be employed, and a mosaic- 
work of moss-coral animalcules may be seen, of varied 
and beautiful forms, on the chalk-coating of the walls 
of a room. 

The best way of observing them is to place a drop of 
water on a delicate film of mica, and to add to it as 
much fine chalk-powder as the top of a penknife will 
take up. Spread this out like a very thin layer, then 
drain off the water, and with it the floating particles ; 
when the layer is quite dry, coat it over with pure 
Canada balsam, holding it, while this is being done, 
over a spirit-lamp. Then the powder, examined 
through a microscope, will be found chiefly composed 
of minute cells, the relics of moss corals. 

Since the publication of the Annals of the U. S. 
Exploring Squadron, and especially the late volume of 
its Geology, by James D. Dana, Geologist of the Ex- 
pedition, science has no lack of materials for describ- 
ing and classifying the various species of coral zoo- 
phytes, their localities, modes, and probable times of 
growth. The facts furnished by this Expedition are 
almost innumerable ; and in the superb quarto volume 
on Geology they are arranged in such a felicitous scien- 
tific order, (though, from the vast amount of original 
matter, necessarily diffuse,) as to afford the coral natu- 
ralist all the information he could desire. 

The author's own deductions are clear and philo- 
sophical, and being derived from no partial knowl- 
edge of facts, they constitute a most valuable exhibi- 



FEJEE ISLAND REEFS DESCRIBED. 193 

tion of the conclusive and comprehensive logic of 
Modern Science. His view of the formation and 
growth both of reefs and corals agrees substantially 
with that presented above, and derived from our ob- 
servations around the Island of Molokai. 

His description of the inner reefs in the Fejees 
might answer almost equally well for this island. Ex- 
amples are common there where, as in the account I 
have given of our ten miles sail upon the Molokai 
reef, a remote barrier incloses as pure a sea as the 
ocean beyond, and the greatest agitation is only such 
as the wind -may excite on a narrow lake or channel. 
Over the surface there are many portions still under 
water at the lowest tides ; and fine fishing sport is af- 
forded on them to the natives, who wacle out at the 
ebb-tide with spears, pronged sticks, and nets, to supply 
themselves with food 

" The lover of the marvellous may find abundant 
gratification by joining in such a ramble. Among 
coral plants and flowers, with fishes of fantastic colors 
— star-fish, echini, and myriads of other beings, which 
science alone has named, fit inhabitants of a coral 
world — there is on every side occasion for surprise 
and admiration. Generally, the rock of these in- 
ner reefs is composed of coral, Which stands as it 
grew, less fragmentary than the outer, but united 
by a solid cement. Upon its surface the limits of 
the constituent masses may be often distinctly tra- 
ced. The corals grow underneath the surface in 

solid hemispheres ; but when the surface is reached 

9 






194 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

the top dies, and enlargement only goes on at the 
sides. 

" Some individual specimens of Porites, in the rock 
of the inner reef of Tongatabu, were twenty-five feet in 
diameter ; and Astreas and Meandrinas, both there 
and in the Fejees, measured tw r elve to fifteen feet. 
The platform resembles a Cyclopean pavement, except 
that the cementing material between the huge masses 
is more solid than any work of art could .be. 

" Sometimes the barrier reef recedes from the shore, 
and forms wide channels or inland seas, where ships 
find ample room and depth of water, exposed, how- 
ever, to the danger of hidden reefs. The reef on the 
northeast coast of New Holland and New Caledonia 
extends four hundred miles, at a distance varying from 
thirty to sixty miles from shore, and having as many 
fathoms of depth in the channel. West of the large 
Fejee Islands the channel is in some parts twenty-five 
miles wide, and twelve to forty fathoms in depth. The 
sloop of war Peacock sailed along the west coast of. 
both Viti Lebu and Vanua Lebu, w T ithin the inner 
reefs, a distance exceeding two hundred miles. - 

" A barrier reef, inclosing a lagoon, is the general 
formation of the coral islands, though there are some 
of small size in which the lagoon is wanting. These 
are found in all stages of development : in some the 
reef is narrow and broken, forming a succession of 
narrow islets with openings into the lagoon ; in others 
there only remains a depression of surface in the cen- 
tre to indicate where the lagoon originally was. The 



NOTICES OF THE KINGSMILL GROUP. 195 

most beautiful are those where the lagoon is com- 
pletely inclosed, and rests within a quiet lake. Maraki, 
one of the Kingsmill group, is one of the prettiest coral 
islands of the Pacific. The line of vegetation is un- 
broken, and seen from the mast-head it lies like a gar- 
land thrown upon the waters. 

" When first seen from the deck of a vessel, only a 
series of dark points is descried, just above the hori- 

.zon. Shortly after the points enlarge into the plumed 
tops of cocoanut-trees, and a line of green, interrupted 
at intervals, is traced along the water's surface. Ap- 
proaching still nearer, the lake and its belt of verdure 
are spread out before the eye, and a scene of more in- 
terest can scarcely be imagined. The surf, beating 
loud and heavy along the margin of the reef, presents 
a strange contrast to the prospect beyond — the white 
coral beach, the massy foliage of the grove, and the 
embosomed lake, with its tiny islets. The color of 
the lagoon water is often as blue as the ocean, al- 
though but fifteen or twenty fathoms deep ; yet shades 
of green and yellow are intermingled, where patches 
of sand or coral knolls are near the surface; and the 
green is a delicate apple shade, quite unlike the usual 

I muddy tint of shallow waters. 

" These garlands of verdure seem to stand on the 
brims of cups, whose bases rest in unfathomable depths. 
Seven miles east of Clermont Tonnere, the lead ran out 
to eleven hundred and forty-five fathoms (six thousand 
eight hundred and seventy feet) without reaching bot- 
tom. "Within three-quarters of a mile of the southern 



196 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

point of this island, the lead at another throw, after 
running out for a while, brought up in an instant at 
three hundred and fifty fathoms, and then dropped off 
again and descended to six hundred fathoms without 
reaching bottom. The lagoons are generally shallow, 
though in the larger islands soundings gave twenty to 
thirty-five, and even fifty and sixty fathoms." 

In observing these vast walls of coral masonry, and 
in studying the diversities of coral upon them, and the 
curiously modified forms of beauty they assume, it is 
natural to ask, What ends do they serve ? and what is 
all this outlay of beauty for ? It were a good answer 
to say, in the words of the Psalmist, when he was at- 
tempting to uncover and describe some of the curious 
processes of "Nature : — Zord y how manifold are thy 
works ! in wisdom hast thou made them all. 

Aside from the manifest utilitarian ends they serve 
in building* up beautiful oases from the bed of ocean, 
as places of habitation for man and beast, and then af- 
fording the material in such exhaustless affluence out 
of which art may construct temples for God's worship 
and palaces for man's abode, we say of them, as we 
can of all things in God's Universe, what one of the 
most eminent American authors has written in the 
Poem entitled "Factitious Life:" — 

These are Earth's uses : — God has framed the whole, 
Not mainly for the body, but the soul, 
That it might dawn on beauty, and might grow 
Noble in thought, from Nature's noble show ; 



* See Note B. 



NATURAL AND ESTHETIC USES OF CORAL. 



197 



Might gather from the flowers an humble mind, 
And on Earth's ever-varying surface find 
Something to win to kind and fresh'ning change, 
And give the powers a wide and healthful range ; 
To furnish man sweet company where'er 
He travels on — a something to call dear, 
And more his own, because it makes a part 
With that fair world that dwells within the heart. 
Earth "yields to healthful labor meat and drink, 
That man may live — for what ? To feel and think ; 
And not to eat and drink, and like the beast, 
Sleep, and then wake and get him to his feast. 
Over these grosser uses Nature throws 
Beauties so delicate, the man foregoes 
A while his low intents, to soft delights 
Yields up himself; and, lost in sounds and sights, 
Forgets that Earth was made for aught beside 
His doting ; and he woos it as his bride ! 




Circular Coral Reef and Lagoon. 



198 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



CHAPTER IX. 

REMINISCENCES OF LAHAINALUNA, AND SKETCHES OF THE FIRST 
HAWAIIAN COLLEGE. 

Suave, mari magno turbantibus sequora yentis, 
E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem. 

Lucretius. 

^* 

Sweet, from a post of safety, to review the labors and virtues of other 
men beyond the seas. 

We recross the Molokai channel by canoe— Sketch of an Hawaiian College — Internal 
economy and discipline— Origin and history — Faculty and course of study— Intention 
of the founders— Ability and usefulness of the first graduates— Laws ahead of mor- 
als— Wisdom not always married to the wise— Prudence not limited to the pruden- 
tial— A revolution in progress— Signs of the times — Entente cordi ale— Natural dif- 
ferences of opinion among missionaries— A pastor's expedient to sound the knowl- 
edge of his flock— Great difficulty of being simple enough in the exhibition of truth 
—Remarkable answers of natives— Heathen destitution of common ideas— Conse- 
quent inappreciation of Scripture — Similar experience of missionaries in the east — 
Remarkable cases in proof— Fruits of the great revival— Reasonings of practical men 
—Sources of correct information— How to find the meridian of truth — Illustration 
from the working of longitude by lunars. 

It is one of the most grateful recollections of the tour 
we have been making through the Hawaiian Heart of 
the Pacific, that a providential passage across the rucle 
channel between the islands of Maui and Molokai, con- 
signed me over to the very cordial hospitalities of La- 
hainaluna. The location there of the Mission Semi- 
nary, containing one hundred and thirty or forty lads 
and young men, the college-like aspect of the main 
building, and frequent sounds of the bell, summoning 



PANORAMA FROM THE COLLEGE HILL. 199 

to some exercise, all invest the place with a literary 
air that is not to be found elsewhere at the Sandwich 
Islands. 

Persons connected with the Seminary, and the fami- 
lies of the teachers, are the sole residents. It is far 
enough removed from Lahaina to be retired, while the 
town and shipping are all in sight two miles below. 
The panorama it commands of sky, ocean, and island, 
with their overhanging clouds, especially from a point 
still higher up the mountain, where Mr. Dibble him- 
self built a house, is very extensive and grand. Four 
different islands and the magnificent expanse of the 
Pacific are always there, and sometimes, on a clear day, 
you can discern Oahu, seventy miles off to the north- 
west, and Hawaii, still further to the south. 

There are three dwelling-houses for teachers, besides 
a commodious stone printing-house, and the College 
edifice, which, including its wings, is one hundred and 
forty feet front, and between thirty and forty feet deep, 
of two stories high, with attic and cupola. The stu- 
dents' quarters are two ranges of adobe and grass- 
houses, a little to the south of the College. A brook is 
always flowing in front, lining itself with verdure, and 
a row of thrifty trees more than repays, with grateful 
shade and green, the pains bestowed upon them. 

The internal conduct and discipline of the Institution 
is much after the form of Colleges in America. The 
students study at their rooms, and recite by divisions. 
Afternoons, from two to supper-time, are devoted to 
cultivating food, and other labor, for which they are 



200 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

compensated in clothing, ■ at fixed .rates. Meals are at 
a common table. 

Ths expense of food is about two cents a day for one 
person, or seven dollars and thirty cents per year. 
Clothing, including mats and sleeping kapas, amounts 
to nearly the same. Books, stationery, and other inci- 
dentals, make up the whole to about twenty dollars per 
year, for which sum, given by any Church or Sunday- 
school, constituting a scholarship, the faculty will edu- 
cate a man for the ministry. 

The faculty officiate by turns at morning and evening 
prayers. A church is constituted within the institution, 
of which Mr. Dibble, during his life, was pastor. 
Twenty-five of the students were members. They have 
frequent religious meetings by themselves, and worship 
in a body in the chapel on the Sabbath. The depart- 
ments of instruction and executive administration are 
three. 

Rev. Mr. Alexander had the department of Mathe- 
matics, Natural Philosophy, and Astronomy, and the 
immediate oversight and discipline of the students. 
Rev. Mr. Dibble had the department of Mental and 
Moral Science, Theology, and History. Rev. Mr. Emer- 
son that of Languages, Geography, Composition, and 
Oratory, and the management of the manual labor de- 
partment. He was also pastor of a church at Kaana- 
pali, twelve miles distant, numbering one hundred and 
thirty-one members. They have had to prepare their, 
text-books in each department, a work which, from the 
outset, has been one of no small magnitude. .. 



SIGNAL USEFULNESS OF EARLY GRADUATES. 201 

This institution has now been in existence twenty 
years. It was commenced in 1831, under the care of 
Rev/Lorrin Andrews, and had to wade along several 
years through a dismal swamp of embarrassments, acci- 
dents, and contracted means. The Res angustse domi, 
so often the lot of literary Men, is generally, too, the 
portion of Literary Institutions, during the period of 
their infancy. This was eminently true of the early 
days of the High School, as it was then called. 

But the sons it reared in those days, like the offspring 
of honest poverty, have turned out practical and robust 
men, the main stay of Common Schools, many of them 
apt to teach, industrious, and faithful. Of one hundred 
and fifty-eight graduates, living in 1842, eleven only 
were reported as not usefully employed, or immoral. 
Seventy-three were church members, and nine officers 
in the church. 

Up to the year 1849, the Seminary, with all its per- 
manent dwelling-houses and appurtenances, cost the 
American Board about seventy-seven thousand dollars, 
and it is now adopted by, and given over to, the Ha- 
waiian Government, and is to be sustained hereafter by 
Government funds alone, but on essentially the same 
plan as heretofore. Up to the present time of its being 
made over to the Government, it has sent forth two 
hundred and forty-one graduates, and it now has one 
hundred and fifty-six under-graduates, as shown by the 
last catalogue. 

It is a good investment for the church, at compound 
interest; and the day, I trust, is not far distant when it 

9* 



202 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

will be rendering a dividend of well-educated assistant 
missionaries and medical practitioners for Hawaii-nei, 
and all the other islands of Polynesia, who will not 
need an annual shipment from foreign lands to supply 
their wants ; who will be of common kith and kin, and 
habits with the people to be instructed, and by whom 
their languages may be easily acquired, being, like their 
own, dialects of the one great language that is spoken 
throughout Polynesia. But in order to this, it must be 
more liberally endowed and better furnished, and the 
range of study must be more extensive and thorough. 

The plan of study, and the length of the course, have 
been somewhat modified in order to meet the increasing 
necessity for the acquisition of English. It has been 
determined that scholars of very little promise be dis- 
missed from the Seminary at an early date ; and that 
at the close of the first three years, all who do not give 
special promise of future usefulness be dismissed : That 
the English language be not taught in the Seminary 
till the close of the three first years of the course, when 
all the members of the class, who shall not be dismissed, 
are expected to enter upon the study of the English, as 
a prominent branch ; and that the whole course, in- 
cluding the study of Theology, be extended from eight 
to twelve years : That to teach successfully the English 
language, is a work that will require the time and 
strength of one teacher. 

We are well persuaded that this is not all that will 
be necessary in order to secure an available knowledge 
of English, which is becoming so much an object of 



ENGLISH AS A VEHICLE OF INSTRUCTION. 203 

desire on the part of Hawaiians. Boys must be taught 
it at the preparatory station schools, and be drilled in 
it all through the course of their education, till the 
sciences can be learned in it, as in the Seminary at 
Batticotta, and its treasures of knowledge be made ac- 
cessible to the Hawaiian teacher and preacher. 

It will be a much cheaper and surer way of enlight- 
ening the Hawaiian mind, than to attempt to introduce 
any thing but the very elements of English science 
and literature in an Hawaiian dress. Natives, to be 
competent teachers, and preachers, and civilians, must 
know something more than these, and otherwise than 
through the medium of a translation. 

Besides, it is only by a knowledge of English that 
Hawaiians can compete with foreigners, and fill their 
own offices of government. The kingdom is inevitably 
departed from them, and men of other blood rule over 
them, unless they learn to write and wrangle, and 
make treaties in English, and present qualifications to 
office, as clerks and scholars, equal to those of supplant- 
ing foreigners. The wise among them are beginning 
to see this, and to inquire, What are we coming to? 
And they are urgent, above any thing else, for them- 
selves and their sons to learn the English. 

It is not the least of the advantages of the excellent 
school of young chiefs at Honolulu, that they are re- 
ceiving their instructions, and learning to converse and 
transact business in the language which threatens to 
conquer theirs. The policy of it, to say no more, is as 
wise as that of certain States in a former age, that, in 



201 LIFE IN THE 'SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



order to avoid subjugation to ancient Rome, adopted, 
as far as possible, her customs and laws, and put them- 
selves in safe alliance with the mistress of the world. 

It is easy to see that the mistress-tongue both of the 
Continental and Island- World of the Pacific, as well as 
Atlantic, is to be the accommodating and all-supplant- 
ing English. They who perceive it among the Hawaii- 
ans desire therefore to master it beforehand, as the best 
way to keep from being denationalized and mastered 
by it. 

In the constitution and laws of the Mission Seminary 
at Lahainaluna, it is declared to be a definite object to 
train up and qualify school-teachers for their respective 
duties, to teach them, theoretically and practically, the 
best method of communicating instruction to others, to- 
gether with a knowledge of the arts, usages, and habits 
of civilized life, with all their train of social blessings. 
It is, then, a thing to be wondered at, and for the Gov- 
ernment to be ashamed of, that it has done no more 
than it has for a Seminary that has so noble an object, 
and that is itself doing so much for the well-being of 
the nation. 

As an offset to the unnatural thing of charging the 
Mission duties on goods imported for their owtl family 
consumption, (which was once done, but now we believe 
is not,) Government ought at least to have endowed or 
supported an English Professorship long before this, 
and so to have been doing something in a line with 
Christian benevolence towards paying the nation's debt 
to the churches of America. 



COST AND WORTH OF THE SEMINARY. 205 

In 1842, of one hundred and fifty-eight persons then 
living, who had been members of the Seminary, thirty- 
five were officers of Government, one hundred and five 
teachers of the public schools. By general consent, the 
influence of the Seminary has been highly beneficial 
to the Hawaiian people; and it has a claim upon the 
national treasury which will not be any longer over- 
looked, provided only it be replenished by the indemnity 
asked of Great Britain, and by the twenty thousand 
dollars so ingloriously extorted by the French, and 
other damages sustained in the outrages under Admiral 
Tromelin. The usual yearly appropriation from the 
treasury of the Mission has been tw T o thousand five 
hundred dollars. To the Boarding-schools at Hilo and 
•Wailuku, eight hundred dollars each. 

In its early days, when this Institution was struggling 
for existence, its pupils were nearly all adults with 
families, and they had to support themselves while 
getting an education. The perseverance and stability 
of character, which was both a prerequisite to, and an 
effect of such a discipline, made them trusty and lable 
men, whose services have been of great value to the 
nation and the cause of Christ. All those that have 
graduated younger and unmarried of late years, have 
not turned out so well. 

Nor is it to be expected that youth just set free from 
the close restraints and vigilant keeping of a life in 
school, should behave themselves always so properly as 
sedate men, who had sown their wild oats years before, 
and who went out to places of usefulness with charac- 



206 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

ters tried and established, and their domestic relations 
fixed. 

It would be strange, indeed, if the spirit of the young 
colt should not sometimes break out with newly en- 
joyed liberty; and stranger still, if young men taught 
the value of property by an apprenticeship of seven or 
eight years, should not be sometimes found covetous 
and greedy. But these are evils necessarily incident to 
the working of a good system, and tell nothing against 
it, any more than do the infirmities and faults of Chris- 
tians against Christianity, which yet are the husks that 
swinish men do eat. 

If the nation is to be permanently elevated and en- 
lightened, some of its youth must be educated and dis- 
ciplined in such an Institution as this is meant to be. 
If some, upon whom pains and expense are bestowed, 
prove worthless, it is only what experienced men expect, 
and does not blind their eyes to the good that has been 
done, or quench their hopes for days to come. 

There have been some painful disclosures of immo- 
rality at Lahainaluna, that have resulted in the dismis- 
sion of eight or ten of the students, and the purging 
out of some of the old leaven. But their offences, 
though flagrant, were such as (if we are not mistaken) 
would hardly have caused expulsion from a New Eng- 
land College. 

In a community like that at these Islands, where the 
laws are so much ahead of the morals, and where the 
religious teachers are endeavoring to form a public sen- 
timent of abhorrence towards vice, it is perhaps neces- 



LAWS IN ADVANCE OF • MORALS, 207 

sary that offences against purity should be punished 
more rigidly than they would be, were there more of 
positive virtue and less of vice. But we cannot help 
saying with the Roman poet, " Quid leges, (and, we 
might add, quid poence^) sine moribus ?" 

Of what avail are laws and penalties, 
Unless there be a virtuous moral sense, 
A public conscience to frown upon 
And render immorality disgraceful ? 

The faculty would be much relieved and aided in the 
guardianship and discipline of the Seminary, and a 
great deal of moral mischief would doubtless be pre- 
vented, if they had a suitable man to be entirely de- 
voted to its secular interests, and to inspect the youth 
in their hours of relaxation, labor, and rest. But either 
the right man has been always wanting, or to the ruling 
Missionary Board in America it has not seemed proper 
to send one. 

"Wisdom eighteen thousand miles off, and legislating 
like a-mother-country over her colonies at the Antipo- 
des, is necessarily far from being perfect. It has all 
the disadvantage of a lever of the third power, the 
fulcrum at one end, the weight to be raised at the other, 
and the power to be applied between the fulcrum and 
resistance ; so that the weight being so much further 
from the centre of motion than the power, the difficulty 
of raising it is increased rather than diminished. 

Thus, the Prudential Committee of the American 
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions is the 
fulcrum, like the ground to a man trying to raise a long 



20S LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

ladder ; the missionaries the other side of Cape Horn 
are the man's arms lifting, and the poor people of Ha- 
waii, the long and heavy arm of the ladder to be raised, 
Now, if the fulcrum could be moved nearer to the 
weight, and the. lever turned into one of the first power, 
it would work to much greater advantage. 

This is in fact practically being done in the present 
movement towards independency of the Hawaiian 
churches ; for the lapse of time, and the extraordinary 
blessing of God upon missionary operations at the 
Sandwich Islands, are now bringing to pass a revolu- 
tion, which is seen in the late separation of a number 
of missionaries from their pecuniary relation to the 
Board, and their consequent independency, and in the 
adoption by Government of the College at Lahaina- 
luna. 

This will both relieve the treasury of the Board, and 
supersede the necessity of much cis- Atlantic manage- 
ment and counselling on the part of the Secretaries of 
the Board, who will soon be able to forego or renounce 
all other relations to the Pacific Mission churches, ex- 
cept such as the American Home Missionary Society 
sustains to its churches in the West. 

In the language of the Committee, "they seek to 
facilitate the independent settlement of the members of 
the Sandwich Island Mission, as pastors and teachers 
at the Islands, and to place those who cannot yet obtain 
a living on the same footing with our home mission- 
aries. And they expect by this means to enable and 
induce the missionaries generally to remain at the Isl- 



THE FUTURE BASIS OF HAWAIIAN SOCIETY. 209 

ands with their families, and thus insure, through the 
divine blessing, a Puritan basis for the community, 
whatever it shall be, which is to exist on those Isl- 
ands." 

In the event of an American Protectorate, at the re- 
quest of the Hawaiian government-, or of annexation to 
the United States, (one of which measures would seem 
to be almost indispensable for the protection of these 
Islands against the insults and .aggressions of the 
French,) the future Sandwich Island community must 
be substantially an American community, moulded to 
a great degree by American missionaries. It is there- 
fore a matter of congratulation to the philanthropist 
who looks to the future good of the human race, and to 
the patriot who would- rear an intelligent and Chris- 
tian nation in the Heart of the Pacific, that the fore- 
most men at the Sandwich Islands are, or have been, 
missionaries, actuated by one prevalent desire, the per- 
petuation and improvement of the Island race, whether 
pure or mixed. 

In this the missionaries all agree. But familiar in- 
tercourse with the different members of the Hawaiian 
Mission, while it has made known an excellent spirit of 
concord and fraternal esteem between its members, has 
also caused me to be acquainted with some natural 
differences of opinion on things .pertaining to the con- 
duct of missionary operations, and the enlargement and 
discipline of native churches. 

Some are of opinion that it is best to keep one door 
of the church always open, and make sure of admitting 



210 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

all the sheep by it, and afterwards to eject all the goats, 
as they are discovered, by a back door. Or, as others 
express it, that they must keep a little stream running 
through the church, in order to keep up their congrega- 
tions, and save some from going to the Catholics. 

Others, on the contrary, of the conservative stamp, 
argue that the Church being the practical exposition of 
Christianity, there is danger of its losing respect and 
moral power by a great many dismissions and excom- 
munications — that more harm is done by getting into 
the church a good many hypocrites, than by keeping 
out of it a few good Christians — that a church of twelve 
truly regenerated is worth more, for good, than a church 
of twelve times twelve, a good part of them deceivers 
or self-deceived. 

They contend that some who are admitted to the 
church do not know enough to be Christians. It has 
been thought that in a church at one time of one thou- 
sand professed converts on the Island of Oahu, there 
were hardly ten Christians. Its pastor informed me 
that of forty young persons admitted not until six 
months after he hoped they were Christians, there were 
only two or three that had not been disciplined for 
lewdness, and become worthless and depraved. The 
difficulty which some conscientious men find in satisfy- 
ing themselves of the suitableness of candidates for the 
church, is very great, such are the darkness and igno- 
rance of a heathen mind. 

When Mr. Alexander, one of the Lahainaluna teach- 
ers, was a pastor, and used to visit his people sixteen 



a missionary's expedients with the people. 211 

years ago, on the Island of Kauai, from house to house 
on week-days, he told me that he has often taken one 
single truth of Scripture and turned it over and over 
this way and that way, racked his brain for illustrations, 
and explained it in diverse forms, and then has asked 
a question to try how far the mind was instructed, and 
found, to his grief, that the person knew nothing at all — ■ 
did not appear to have received a single correct idea. 

Then he would return and go through again the same 
process of explaining and simplification, at length ask 
again some test question, and finding, as before, they 
seemed to have apprehended nothing, would have the 
melancholy query to put to himself, What do they know 
of my sermons ? 

Frequently, when the people would come to tell him 
their manao, (thought or mental exercise,) as that their 
sins were as many as the sands upon the sea-shore, or 
as the stars of the sky, or the leaves upon the trees, or 
the fish in the sea, he would interrupt them by some 
question, to w T hich they, saying over in their minds their 
manao lest they should forget it, would not be able to 
give any definite answer, but would be stumbled and 
balked by the simplest inquiry about the nature of sal- 
vation. 

Ask them again, sometimes, how they were to be 
saved, and they would answer, by praying — by breaking 
off sin — seldom by faith in Christ. "Do you sin now?" 
u Xo." " Do you not have evil feelings ?" " I used to, 
but don't now." 

Their answers were not always out of the way, but 



212 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

frequently witty and to the point. A£ Mr. Alexander 
was once asking some of his people about depravity, 
and how they would express their moral state, he was 
aptly answered, We are all like rotten eggs. Some of 
the first inquirers at the Islands said to the early mis- 
sionaries, " My heart is dark: you are light, and must 
enlighten it." Another, " My heart is a wilderness, 
you must cultivate it." Another, " My heart is a lamp, 
you must fill it with oil." Another, " My heart is a 
dry field, you must water it." 

So an old man in the interior of Africa, when his 
people were asked by the missionary whether they 
would not like to be taught the truths of God's word, 
replied that "they were like men lost far off in the bush, 
and in darkness, unable to find their way out.* The- 



* The experience of a thoughtful pagan shrouded in the dense dark- 
ness of heathenism, yet feeling after God, is strikingly exhibited in the 
talk of a Bechuana, called Sekesa, with a missionary from whom he had 
been hearing the Gospel : 

" Your views, O white man, are just what I wanted and sought for 
before I knew you. Twelve years ago I went, in a cloudy season, to feed 
my flock along the Tlotse, among the Malutis. Seated upon a rock, in 
sight of my sheep, I asked myself sad questions; yes, sad, because I 
could not answer them. The stars, said I, who touched them with Ms 
hand ? On what pillars do they rest ? The waters are not weary ; they 
run without ceasing, at night and morning alike ; but where do they 
stop? or .who makes them run thus? The clouds also go, return, and 
fall in water to the earth. Whence do they arise ? Who sends them ? 
It surely is not the Barokas (rain-makers) who gave us the rain, for how 
could they make it ? The wind — what is it ? Who brings it, or takes 
it away, makes it blow, and roar, and frighten us ? Do I know how the 
corn grows? Yesterday, there was not a blade to be seen in my field. 
To-day,. I return and find something. It is very small ; I can scarcely 



STRIKING EXPERIENCE OF THE PAGAN MIND. 213 

missionary seemed a kind friend meeting them, and 
offering to conduct them home." 

The missionaries, to* a man, testify to the extreme 
difficulty of preaching simply enough for the Hawaiian 
mind. Doubtless many sermons, especially from young 
missionaries, quite fail of giving instruction because 



see it, but it will grow up like to a young man. Who can have given the 
ground wisdom and power to produce it ? Then I buried my forehead 
in my hands. 

" Again I thought within myself, and I said, We all depart, but this 
country remains ; it alone remains, for we all go away. But whither 
do we go ? My heart answered, Perhaps other men live, besides us, 
and we shall go to them. A second time it said, Perhaps those men 
live under the earth, and we shall go to them. But another thought 
arose against it, and said, Those men under the earth, whence come 
they ? Then my heart did not know what more to think. It wandered. 
Then my heart rose and spoke to me, saying, All men do much evil, and 
thou, thou also hast done much evil. Woe to thee ! I recalled many 
wrongs which I had done to others, and because of them my conscience 
gnawed me in secret, as I sat alone on the rock. I say I was afraid. 
I got up, and ran after my sheep, trying to enliven myself; but I trem- 
bled much !" 

In like manner a certain man on the Malabar coast had inquired of 
various devotees and priests, how he might make atonement for his 
sins. At last he was directed to the following means : He was to drive 
iron spikes, sufficiently blunted, through his sandals ; on these spikes he 
was to place his naked feet, and walk 250 coss. (about 480 miles.) If 
through loss of blood, or weakness of the body, he was obliged to halt, 
he might wait for healing and strength. He undertook the journey ; 
and while he halted under a large shady tree, where the Gospel was 
sometimes preached, one of the missionaries came and preached in his 
hearing from these words : " The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth 
us from all sin." W r hile he was preaching the man rose up, threw off 
his torturing sandals, and cried aloud, " This is what I want — This is what 
I want ;" and be became a lively witness that the blood of Jesus Christ 
cleanses from all sin. 



214 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



they give too much, and are deficient in a reiterating 
simplicity. Many of the commonest ideas, too, which 
we have from very childhood, natives are utterly des- 
titute of. 

Tell an Hawaiian that we are God's because he made 
•us, and it is no reason at all to them, for they have all 
along till now been in the habit of making canoes, cul- 
tivating food, manufacturing kapa, and the like, and 
having it immediately taken away from them by their 
chiefs ; so that the making of a thing by no means with 
them constituted ownership. So to preach to them 
from the text in which God challenges honor from the 
paternal relation which he stands in to men, " If I be 
a father, where is mine honor?" makes little impression, 
because they are a people among whom the filial rela- 
tions and duties have been hitherto so little regarded. 

In like manner, to tell them God loveth whom he 
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth : 
that he chastens them in love as a father does the son 
in whom he delighteth, is to say what they cannot ap- 
preciate, and know nothing of, for they never punish 
their children, but when they are Tiuhu roa^ that is, 
mad. 

And here I am reminded of what an English mis- 
sionary says of his similar experience in the East. 
" They (the natives) have the most expressive terms for 
sin and holiness, and the duty of worshipping, and they 
will hear you with approbation while discoursing 
vaguely on these qualities, and yet they attach no 
proper meaning to the terms, and will totally misun- 



MISCONCEPTIONS OF RELIGIOUS TRUTH. 215 

derstand you. While discoursing on sin, they will 
think you mean insulting a Bramin, or 'killing a cow, 
or some such thing ; and while on holiness, that you 
mean making offerings to their idols, or going on pil- 
grimages, and performing some acts of external self- 
mortification. With such notions as these in regard to 
sin, and holiness, and repentance, and worship, they 
• can hardly be said to have a conscience, and you have 
yet to form, or rather to mould, one within them." 

But all this to the contrary notwithstanding, and 
maugre all that may be said on the dark side of native 
character and piety, we are sure that they have learned 
a great deal of the Gospel at the Sandwich Islands, and 
that multitudes among them have felt its power. And 
we have noted the memorandum, (whether right or 
wrong,) that the older missionaries grow, and the more 
thoroughly they become acquainted with native char- 
acter, and the language, the more they have -of charity. 

Mr. Alexander, when pastor of the church at Waioli, 
on the island of Kauai, admitted one hundred and 
twenty, and he fears that may have been too many. 
" Not (he says) that the Gospel has been preached in 
. vain — I believe that there are not a few sincere converts ; 
c but I have discovered such a disposition in the people 
to make the attainment of church-membershij) a para- 
mount aim, that I have felt like adopting the sentiment 
of the great Apostle to the Gentiles : Christ sent me 
not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel." 

Other pastors, equally conscientious and engrossed 
with preaching the Gospel, were admitting at the same 



216 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



time (the period of the Great Revival) hundreds, and 
even thousands, in the hope that they were the children 
of God, and believing that a place in his church was 
their right. 

Mr. Hitchcock, the laborious missionary on Molokai, 
testifies in regard to that work thus : " A greater num- 
ber of the fruits of that revival give little or no evi- 
dence of conversion, than do the same number of those 
who were received before. And may not the same be 
said of great revivals, in general, in every part of the 
w r orld? I have not the means of determining how 
much the cases of discipline in this church exceed 
those of the same size in the United States. Prob- 
ably the excess may be considerable. In estimating, 
however, the amount of the work of the Holy Spirit, 
the truth will not be come at by mere comparisons in 
numbers. 

" It must be remembered that the converts here were 
taken from the lowest depths of ignorance and moral 
debasement, and many, yea, all of them, have lived in 
habits of falsehood and many other overt sins, until 
such habits have become a second nature to them. All 
those powerful influences which co-operate with the 
grace of God in restraining converts from sin in our 
native land, are wholly wanting here. Let it be sup- 
posed, for a moment, that : all those who entered the 
church as fruits of any great revival in New England, 
have been destitute of parental influence,. destitute of 
conscience, destitute of any true sense of the worth of 
character, and having lived to the moment of their con- 



HAWAIIAN AND AMERICAN CHURCHES COMPARED. 217 

version in the midst and in the practice of licentious- 
ness. 

"It is easy to perceive that, even allowing them to 
have been true converts, many more cases of discipline 
might, and probably would have occurred in those 
churches, than can be expected to occur now. What 
we have supposed of the converts in such a New Eng- 
land revival, is fact with converts at the Sandwich Isl- 
ands. The fact, therefore, that cases of sin and dis- 
orderly conduct are more frequent here than there, does 
not prove that the work of the Holy Spirit, or that the 
number of real conversions here, has been less than 
there; or that the proportion between real and false 
conversions in the Sandwich Islands revivals, is less 
than in those occurring in civilized lands. 

"Taking into account all the unfavorable circum- 
stances of the members of the church of which I have 
the care, their great ignorance, the limited range of 
their ideas, the irresistible influence of the example of 
their ungodly friends and of society in general, the 
force of early education and habits of sin, their extreme 
poverty, idleness, and aversion to thinking, and nu- 
merous other adverse influences ; the grace of God, in 
enabling them to walk as consistently with the Gospel 
as they do, seems to me more evident and conspicuous 
than it does in churches where there are vastly greater 
attainments in holiness, but where adverse influences 
do not exist, and where there are ten thousand precious 
influences acting in a direct line with that grace." 

I have quoted thus at length, because these remarks, 

10 



218 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

and the whole communication from which they are ex- 
tracted, contain a better view of Hawaiian churches 
and revivals than could be given by any man not a 
missionary. To the same purport is an earnest letter 
from Mr. Coan, in the same number of the Missionary 
Herald.* 

It has often appeared to me that truth is to be ar- 
rived at from comparing the differing views and state- 
ments of different men, very much as a ship's longitude 
is obtained in working lunars. The labor lies in ap- 
plying rightly the numerous corrections, now on this 
side and now on that. There are the first, second, and 
third corrections, with their proportional logarithms. 
There are the corrections of the sun's and moon's alti- 
tudes, for parallax and refraction, and the height of the 
observer above the sea. 

There are the corrections of declinations, and dis- 
tances as calculated in the Nautical Almanac at the 
meridian of Greenwich, for the meridian of the ship. 
And then there is the correction for the seconds of the 
moon's horizontal parallax, and the correction for equa- 
tion of time, and other things, all of which are to be 
exactly applied, and the variation tables carefully con- 
sulted, before the navigator can find his real place. 
And even then it is rarely that he gets it by a lunar 
nearer than ten or fifteen miles. 

So, in gathering truth from the observations and re- 
ports of men, you have to take into account the place, 

* Vol. xxvii., p. 105. 



HOW TO FIND THE MERIDIAN OF TRUTH. 219 

and profession, and leanings of the observers. You 
must compare and correct for the differences of mental 
parallax and altitudes made by observers from different 
points of view. You must note, if possible, the aberra- 
tions from the fixed meridian of truth, when to be 
added and when subtracted. The various deflections 
and increase or diminution made by prejudice are to 
be ascertained. The dip of the mind's horizon is to be 
noted, and the different degrees of refraction made by 
the differences in men's ordinary intellectual atmos- 
pheres, whether clear or foggy. There is a correction 
to be made according as you find the observers to be 
short or long-sighted, and as they have the eye of an 
eagle or that of an owl. 

And finally, there is an allowance to be made in the 
representations given, according as they think you will 
use and steer by their observations or not. And, after 
all, if you have patience and skill to apply all the cor- 
rections, or are sp happy as to be able to do it by intui- 
tion, even as rare geniuses are said sometimes to solve 
mathematical problems, yet it is not certain that your 
result will be absolute truth. And it is seldom that a 
modest man will peremptorily challenge another's as- 
sent to his own particular conclusions. 

"While the author of this work is far from challenging 
assent to his reasonings and inferences from things at 
the Sandwich Islands, either as presented in the present 
volume, or in " The Island World of the Pacific," he 
both asks and expects a belief in his facts, which he 
has certified to be accurate and true, and concerning 



220 



LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



which he affirms only what he well knows. Oonclu 
sions may be mistaken, but facts are fixed and reliable, 
From the facts carefully given throughout these pages, 
let our readers draw their own conclusions as to the 
civilizing* power of the Gospel, the relative values ot 
the Merchant and the Missionary, the results of their 
united labors, and the prospects of humanity for time 
to come in the Heart of the Pacific. 









* Several laws have been recently passed by the Hawaiian Govern- 
ment, to promote the cause of Education ; among them, one giving the 
proceeds of certain lands for educational purposes ; an annual tax of 
two dollars, on each male subject, has been imposed, for the same gen- 
eral purpose ; and a fine of one dollar is exacted of every child who 
absents himself from school, and a fine of Jive dollars, if the absence is 
the parents' fault. Under the fostering care of Government, and the 
encouragement of the missionaries, school districts are now formed all 
over the Islands, and school-houses have been erected even in the most 
remote and inaccessible places. 



WORK OF MISSIONARIES IN THE BOOK LINE, 221 



CHAPTER X. 

SANDWICH ISLANDS LITERATURE AND LETTER-WRITERS. 

As there are two wants connatural to man, so there are two main 
directions of human activity pervading, in modern times, the whole 
civilized world ; constituting and sustaining that nationality, which yet 
it is their tendency, and more or less their effect, to transcend and to 
moderate — namely, Trade and Literature. 

S. T. Coleridge. 

Number of printed works in the Hawaiian tongue — Literary contributions of na- 
tives — Newspapers in the vernacular — An original work on Hawaiian history — 
Installation of native ministers— A collection of old meles — Translation of an origi- 
nal song on the creation— Specimens of Cupid's epistolography — Letter from a 
damsel of Lahaina— Others from students of the Seminary — Samples of the Ha- 
waiian madrigal — A letter from the Hilo school-girls— Others from teachers in 
Kohala— Curious vernacular idioms — Letters from men of Hawaii to a society of 
ladies in America— Comments and correspondencies — Unique epistle from a native 
teacher — Ingenuous working of regenerated minds — A study for the philosopher — A 
trophy of triumph for the Christian— Other specimens of Hawaiian literature- 
Cheering proofs of progress. 

It is natural, while at the spring-head of Hawaiian 
learning, at Lahainaluna, to say something upon the 
subject of Hawaiian literature. This, indeed, has yet 
but little to boast of as purely its own. But, aside from 
. the entire Scriptures, there have been translated and 
compiled by the missionaries, within a period of less 
than thirty years, upwards of eighty different works.* 



* M. Barrot, a French Catholic writer, having taken occasion to cen- 
sure the missionaries at the Sandwich Islands for not printing more 
books in the Hawaiian language, upon " the progress of industry or sci- 
ence," and a less number upon "religious subjects, such as commentaries 

8* 



222 



LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



Those are now serving for reading, reference, and class- 
books, from the primer of A-B-C-darians, up to the 
text-book of students in theology. . 



on the Bible, catechisms for the use of the natives, and hymn-books," 
the editor of the Honolulu Friend thus replies: 

Whether the American Missionaries have been particularly censurable 
in this respect, we leave our readers to infer by perusing the following 
catalogue of publications issued from the American Mission press pre- 
vious to 1845 : 



Elementary Lessons. 

Decalogue and Lord's Prayer. 

Scripture Doctrines. 

Thoughts of the Chiefs. 

Sermon on the Mount. 

Hawaiian Hymns. 

First Book for Children. 

Universal Geography. 

New Testament. 

Fowle's Child's Arithmetic. 

Animals of the Earth. 

Catechism on Genesis. 

Geometry for Children. 

Tract on Marriage. 

Sacred Geography. 

Geographical Questions. 

Bible-class Book. 

Col burn's Arithmetic. 

History of Beasts. 

Lama Hawaii, newspaper. 

Hawaiian Almanac. 

Vocabulary. 

Compend of Ancient History. 

Union Questions. 

Colburn's Sequel. 

History of Beasts for Children. 

Hawaiian Teacher. 

Child's Teacher. 

Daily Food. 

Hawaiian Grammar. 

First Reading Book for Children. 

Tract on the Sabbath. 

Maps of U. Geography. 

Scripture Chronology and History. 

Hymns, revised and enlarged. 

Hymns, with Tunes. 

Linear Drawing. 

Little Philosopher. 

English and Hawaiian Grammar. 



Tract on Popery. 
First Teacher for Children. 
Tract on Astronomy. 
Maps of Sacred Geography. 
Sixteen Sermons. 
Tract on Lying. 
Attributes of God. 
First Book for teaching English. 
Moral Science. 
Key to Colburn. 
Heavenly Manna. 
Hymns for Children. 
Hawaiian History. 
Colburn's Algebra. 
Anatomy. 
Scripture Lessons. 

Mathematics, Geometry, Trigonometry, 
Mensuration, Surveying, and Navigation. 
Tract on Intemperance. 
Bible-class Book, vol. 2. 
" " vol.3. 

Keith's Study of the Globes. 
Volume of Sermons. 
Sandwich Islands Laws. 
English and Hawaiian Lessons. 
Keith on the Prophecies. 
Dying Testimony of Christians and Infidels. 
Bailey's Algebra. 
Beading Book for Schools. 
Messenger, semi-monthly. 
History of the Sandwich Islands in English . 
Hawaiian Bible. 
Child's Book on the Soul. 
Natural Theology. 
Nonanona, newspaper. 
Articles of Faith and Covenant. 
Church. History. 
Moral Philosophy. 
Pilgrim's Progress, 






LITERARY CONTRIBUTIONS OF NATIVES. 223 



A good many of them have been prepared by the 
teachers of the Lahainaluna Seminary ; one of the 
objects of which is declared to be to disseminate sound 
knowledge throughout the Islands, embracing general 
literature and the sciences, and whatever may help to 
elevate the people from their present ignorance and 
degradation, and cause them to become a thinking, en- « 
lightened, and virtuous nation. 

Another object of kindred consequence, is to educate 
young men of piety and promising talents, with a view 
to their' becoming assistant teachers of religion, or fel- 
low-laborers with the missionaries, in propagating the 
'Gospel of Jesus Christ among their destitute and dying 
countrymen, and throughout all the islands of Poly- 
nesia. 

These objects are being steadily accomplished. In 
fulfilment of the first end, besides acting as teachers 
and filling important places in the government, the 
graduates are doing something towards making books 
and forming a national literature. They have had not 
a little to do in framing the pre'sent Hawaiian code of 
laws, and their communications to the Kumu Hawaii, 
Nonanona, and Elele, three native newspapers, have 
been numerous and often pithy. 

It was members of the Seminary, also, who furnished 
the written matter from which Mr. Dibble compiled the 

We regret our inability to place beside this catalogue the list of pub- 
lications issued- from the Catholic press. We have never met with but 
two or three small publications printed at that press, and they were 
most strictly confined to the peculiar tenets of the Romish Church. 



224 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

volume called Moolelo Hawaii, or Hawaiian Annals, 
which has been the groundwork of two of the Histories 
since written in English. A valuable article on the 
Decrease of Population was furnished by the intelligent- 
native, David Malo, now a licensed preacher of the 
Gospel. Several of the Lahainaluna graduates have 
been licensed also from time to time as Evangelists. 
And in December of 1849, there was seen the first in- 
stance of the ordination and installing of a native min- 
ister, as the independent pastor of the Congregational 
Church at Kahuka, island of Oahu. This was in the 
person of Eev. James Kekela, a graduate of the Semi- 
nary, at which he was for several years a beneficiary of 
James Hunewell, Esq., of Charlestown, Massachusetts. 

The first teacher at Lahainaluna, Eev. L. Andrews, has 
in his possession a mass of old Hawaiian meles (songs) 
which he gathered and wrote down with much care 
from the mouths of natives. They are somewhat after 
the style of the old Greek Ehapsodists, and they are 
said, by competent judges who have seen them in 
manuscript, to be good specimens of the decent sort of 
unwritten Hawaiian Literature, containing the curious 
jumble of Hawaiian mythology, and all the Norse-like 
fables of their giant kings and gods. But like the talk 
of Gratiano in the play, it is all an infinite deal of con- 
fused nonsense and nothing. All that's worth pre- 
serving is as two grains of wheat in two bushels of 
chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and 
when you have them, they are not worth the search. 

A later mele, on the creation, by Ke-Kupuohi, an old 



ORIGINAL ODE ON THE CREATION. 225 



chief woman of Hawaii, composed fifter having read, 
for the first time, the first chapter of Genesis, Mr. An- 
drews translated, as follows : m 

A MELE ON THE CREATION. 

God breathed into the empty space, 
And widely spread his power forth, 
The spirit flying, hovered o'er ; 
A spirit 'tis, a shadow of what is good, 
A shadow of heaven is the Holy Spirit. 

His power ^grasped the movable, it was fast, 
East was the separating mass, lest it should move ; 
It moved not, God made it fast : 
It was fast by the power of His will. 

The earth became embodied, 
The islands also rose, they rose to view, 
The land was bare of verdure, 
And desolate the earth. 
'Twas earth alone ; 
Earth also was man, 
'Twas God that made him, 
By him also were all things made. 

He caused to grow the verdure ; 
The earth was decked with beauty. 
He adorned with flower the shrubs : 
Beautiful was the earth 
From the hand of God. 

God made tins wide-extended heaven ; 
He made the heavens, long, long ago ; 
He established the heavens a dwelling-place ; 
He dwelt alone, Jehovah by himself, 
The Spirit with him. 

His power created multitudes, 
Thousands, myriads, numberless, 
Until the heaven was full, and full the earth ; 

10* 



226 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Filled with righteousness, with power, with goodness, 
With glor y, with holiness, with mercy ; 
Great were all his works. 

Through (rod's abounding goodness, 
Vast are the extended heavens, 
Great are the heavens and the earth, 
Great are the mountains, and the sea ; 
The work of God alone, 
And his alone the power. 

He fixed the sun his place ; 
But the islands moved, moved the islands, 
With sudden, noiseless, silent speed; 
We see not his skilful work : 
God is the great support that holds the earth. 

One of the graduates of the Seminary wrote an 
ode, a sort of funeral elegy, on the death of a son of 
Dr. Judd, a translation of which is inserted in Mr. 
Jarves 5 History of the Sandwich Islands, that is truly 
touching and beautiful. Some others have occasionally 
appeared elsewhere that possess considerable merit. 

I have been not a little amused with perusing some in- 
tercepted letters that passed at one time between sundry 
lads of the Lahainaluna Seminary, and certain of the 
lasses of Lahaina. They are too good specimens of the 
Hawaiian madrigal, and of an Hawaiian's sensibility 
to love, to pass unnoticed. We transcribe some ex- 
tracts, taken down as Rev. Mr. Alexander, the mission- 
ary teacher, was interpreting them for our amusement. 
The first is from one of the damsels of Lahaina, to her 
lover, up at the Seminary. 

Love to you, who speakest sweetly, whom I did kiss. My warm 
affections go out to you with your love. My mind is oppressed in 



SPECIMENS OF NATIVE LETTER-WEITEES. 227 

consequence of not having seen you these times. Much affection 
for thee dwelling there where the sun causeth the head to ache. 
Pity for thee in returning to your house, destitute as you supposed.' 
I and she went to the place where we had sat in the meeting-house, 
and said she, Let us weep. So we two wept for you. And we 
conversed about you. 

. We went to bathe in the bread-fruit yard : the wind blew softly 
from Lahainaluna, and your image came down with it. We wept 
for you. Thou only art' our food when we are hungry. We are 
satisfied with your love. 

It is better to conceal this; and lest dogs should prowl" after it, 
and it should be found out, when you have read this letter, tear it up, 

FROM ONE OF THE LADS, BOKI. 

Love to thee, thou daughter of the Pandanus of Lanahuli. Thou 
hina Mna* which declarest the divisions of the wind. Thou cloud- 
less son of the noon. — Thou most precious of the daughters of the 
earth. — Thou beauty of the clear nights of Lehua. — Thou refresh- 
ing fountain of Keipi. — Love to thee, O Pomare, thou royal wo- 
man of the Pacific here. Thou art glorious with ribbons flying 
gracefully in the gentle breeze of Puna. Where art thou, my be- 
loved, who art anointed with the fragrance of glory ? ' Much love 
to thee, who dost draw out my soul as thou dwellest in the shady 
bread-fruits of Lahaina. O thou who art joined to my affection, 
who art knit to me in the hot days of Lahainaluna! 

Hark ! when I returned great was my love. I was overwhelmed 
with love like one drowning. When I lay down to sleep I could 
not sleep; my mind floated after thee. Like the strong South 
wind of Lahaina, such is the strength of my love to thee, when it 
comes. Hear me; at the time the bell rings for meeting, on 
Wednesday, great was my love to you. I dropped my hoe and ran 



* Supposed to mean a beautiful flower that grows on the tops of the 
mountains, where sea and land breezes meet. 



228 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

away from my work. I secretly ran to the stream of water, and 
there I wept for my love to thee. Hearken — my love resembles 
the cold water far inland. Forsake not thou this our love. Keep 
it quietly, as I do keep it quietly here. 

A THIRD FROM ONE OF THE STUDENTS. 

Love to thee, by reason of whom my heart sleeps not night nor 
day, all the days of my dwelling here. . O thou beautiful one, for 
whom my love shall never cease. Here also is this — at the time I 
heard you were going to Wailuku, I was enveloped in exceeding 
great love. And when I heard you had really gone, great was my 
regret for you, and exceeding great my love. My appearance was 
like a sick person who cannot answer when spoken to. I would 
not go down to the sea again, because I supposed you had not re- 
turned. I feared lest I should see all the places where you and I 
had conversed together, and walked together, and I should fall in 
the streets on account of- the greatness of my love to you. I how- 
ever did go down, and I was continually longing with love to you. 
Your father said to me, Won't you eat with us 1 I refused, saying 
I was full. But the truth was, I had eaten nothing. My great love 
to you, that was the thing which could alone satisfy me. Presently, 

however, I went to the place of K , and there I heard you had 

arrived. I was a little refreshed by hearing this. But my eyes still 
hung down. I longed to see you, but could not find you, though I 
waited till dark. Now, while I am writing, my tears are dropping 
down for you ; now my tears are my friends, and my affection to 
you, O thou who wilt forever be loved. Here also is this : consent 
thou to my desire, and write me, that I may know your love. My 
love to thee is great, thou splendid flower of Lanakahula. 

Now we have no hesitation in saying that these love- 
lorn products of Lahainaluna and Lahainlalo, meant for 
the eye of the loved alone, but accidentally brought to 



SAMPLES OF THE HAWAIIAN MADRIGAL. 229 

my inspection, will compare favorably with many a 
sonnet, of world-wide notoriety, 

" Made to his mistress' eyebrow," 

by the poet-lover, in lands of chivalry and song. They 
are the strictly natural, unsophisticated, and therefore 
by no means silly effusions of the youthful Hawaiian 
mind, under the liquescent process of that almost uni- 
versal mental solvent, of which Coleridge says, 

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 
Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
All are but ministers of love, 
And feed his sacred flame. 

Perhaps it is hardly fair to make such a use of in- 
tercepted Hawaiian madrigals, but they will have in- 
terest for the curious and the philosophic, as well as for 
the swelling heart of youth, because they prove, if 
nothing else, how the human mind, under the sway of 
the passion of Love, as well as under the teachings of 
Religion, expresses itself after the same way, and evinces 
the same phenomena, whether, in polite Greek, or pro- 
tean English, or simple Hawaiian. 

Let us now compare with these sui generis speci- 
mens -of Cupid's Epistolography at the Sandwich Isl- 
ands, the following epistles from the same part of the 
world elicited by only the ordinary sentiments of sin- 
cere friendship, gratitude, and Christian esteem. 

Hilo, Hawaii. 

Love to you, Mr. C- . Great is our love to you, in consequence 

of our dwelling together so pleasantly at Hilo here. Therefore, 
for our love to you, we have made a palule for you. 



230 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

We remember all your words, and your commands. It is our 
mind to keep them all. 

This also. — We are living together pleasantly and in peace, we 
school-girls of Mrs. Coan. If you should hear we are doing those 
things which are not right, then your heart would be heavy. 

This also. — We remember our pleasant walks with you in Hilo. 

Will you pray much that we may live in the peace (literally, cool 
shade) of our Lord ? 

' By the waves and the winds of the ocean is borne this our thought 
of love to thee. 

From the girls of the Boarding-school at Hilo. 

By me, 

Kalama. 

Kohala, Hawaii. 

Love to you, Mr. C . This is my thought of love to you. I 

declare it to you on this white paper, and with this black ink, that 
it may be carried- on the wing of the wind. Great love to you, in 
whom is the Spirit of God. This is what I know of you. You 
have given us a bell for our meeting-house. 

These are some also who have assisted us in building our house ; 
the King, whose is the kingdom, gave only sixty dollars; and the 
Governor of this island gave only forty dollars, and the members 
of the church have given only their ninepence and their twenty-five 
cents ! But your present is a bell ! That is like — how many dol- 
lars ? Therefore my love for you has burst forth, and I have thought 
to write to you. Great indeed is your love for us ! 

Our meeting-house is finished. It is thatched with Ji-leaf on the 
sides and ends, and with cane-leaf on the roof. It is filled with 
seats, and most of it is floored with boards ; a little remains. 

This also I declare to you. There is trouble in the church. 
Some of the brethren have been drinking sour potato and smoking 
tobacco. By-and-by, perhaps, the punishment of God will fall 
upon us of Kohala, if we do not run into Him for shelter. The 
people of Kona and Kau were guilty of this sin before, and God is 



LETTERS FROM MEN OF KOHALA. 231 

punishing them. There is a great famine there, and after years, or 
months, perhaps, so it will be here. The beginning of this evil was 
with the land-officers. This it is that I declare to you. Tell to us 
some of the wonderful things done in your land. My thought is 
finished. 

By me, a pupil of E. Bond's when you were here in Hawaii. 

Pahia. 

Kohala, Hawaii. 

Great love to you, Mr. C — — , our father in the truth. Love and 
blessing to you because of your love to us and your great kindness. 
Because also of your stirring up the brethren in the United States 
to that which is wanting to our new meeting-house in Kohala. 

We are very happy in having received it, (i. e. the bell,) and in 
hearing its voice — a strange voice ! Ended now are the old things. 
The horn (shell with which they formerly called to meeting) is 
nothing now ! for here is the bell ! 

Concerning the bell my word is done. 

Here is this new thought. I declare it to you. Blessed are we 
in having obtained a new meeting-house ! It is an excellent house ! 
It has a floor of boards, nice windows, and is full of good seats. 
All our wants are now supplied in this house. 

Here is this new thought, too. We have a singing-school here 
in Kohala now ; there are a great many pupils. By-and-by, per- 
haps, we shall understand this good work. If the pupils are atten- 
tive they will know well. That's done. 

This, too, is another thought. The brethren are awaking. A 
great many now attend meetings on the Sabbath and on other 
days. Some who had fallen into this sin and that sin, have returned 
again. 

This is my very last thought to you. Love and peace be to you 
in the Lord Jesus. I remember you in my prayers to God for you, 
because of illness in your body, and because of our meeting here 
in Kohala. And I praise God, too, that he has given both to us 



232 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

and to you blessings for our Bodies and our souls ; to us a teacher 
and the Sabbath^ His word and good things a great many. 

I, with respect, 

KlLAKAU. 

From a number of other curious and original manu- 
script specimens of the Epistolary Literature of the 
Sandwich Islands in my possession, I select the follow- 
ing to a society of American ladies, friends of the Rev. 
Mr. Bond, who had sent out to him a box of ready- 
made clothing for the use of his school-boys. Their 
short way of naming their teacher is not from ^hy want 
of politeness or of reverence, but is peculiar to the 
nation. 

Hawaiians generally know nothing of the titles Mr. 
and Madam, or of Christian and surnames united. 
Thus, in speaking to or ' of Eev. Mr. Thurston, they 
would say Kakina, the nearest sound to Thurston they 
can utter. And so of his wife they would say Kakina- 
Wahine, the woman Thurston, or Thurston's wife. This 
is curt enough, and there must be great advance in the 
arts of civilization before they will come to Rabbi, 
Rabbi. The expression "great, perhaps," may be 
taken, if the reader please, to indicate that they meant 
to keep clear of all flattery, and not to speak positively, 
where, after all, a very moderate degree of love might 
have sent the garments. It will be noticed that they 
know when they have done, a thing that cannot be al- 
ways said of either speakers or writers. 

Love to you, Ladies of Hallowell, in America. Great is your 
kindness to us, in giving us the pantaloons for ourselves, and the 



COMMUNICATIONS TO LADIES IN AMERICA. 233 

shirts also. We are now clothed in the garments you have so gen- 
erously given us, the boys in this High-school of Kohala. Great, 
perhaps, is your love towards us, and therefore have you sent us 
these fine garments. Love to you all, from the greatest to the least 
of you. This thought is done. 

Here are some of the things we are doing in Bond's school: 

We rise early in the morning, wash our faces, and go to meeting, 
(our morning prayer-meeting ;) and when we return, we read in the 
Holy Bible. • At the ringing of the bell, we go into school ; and 
when school is out, we eat ; and afterwards go to work. We have 
finished one half of the garden and the paths. The work we have 
done looks very nice, and the many things also growing in the gar- 
den are beautiful. 

Here is another thought for you. What kind of a country is 
yours? Very good, perhaps, and pleasant, and not hot; and the 
living there, too, is agreeable, perhaps. 

This thought is finished. 

By me, 

Kekipi. 

IOLE, KoHALA. 

Where are you all, Ladies of Hallowell, in America ? 

Great is my joy and my desire for the good work done in your 
country, and for the undertakings there, and for the building up of 
the kingdom of Jehovah. This, also, for your aiding us with pan- 
taloons and shirts. You are very generous, we should say. That 
is your character. Bond has given them to us who dwell in these 
mean houses and in these tattered garments. 

This is the reason of our miserable houses and clothes — the dark- 
heartedness of our fathers. They did not know the God of heaven, 
but they worshipped lying gods. They knew not Jehovah, the God 
that made heaven, and earth, and all things. Therefore is the ig- 
norance of the present race of people in these Islands. Because 
also of their great unbelief, and their prayers made with the mouth 
only. They have not prayed with hearts confessing to God. 



234 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Here, also, is a thought — to tell you of the labors of our teacher. 
These are a great many, stirring up the church, teaching in the 
teachers' school, and in the Sabbath-school, and in the High-school 
of Kohala, Hawaii. 
My letter is finished. 

By me, 

Kalama. 

There is much meaning in one of the sentences of this 
last writer, who is an assistant teacher with Mr. Bond : 
" Because also of their great unbelief, and their prayers 
made with the mouth only ; they have not prayed with 
hearts confessing to God." Alas ! of how many is it 
too true, elsewhere the world oyer, in the words of that 
Scripture : This people draw near me with their mouth, 
and with their lips do honor me, hut have removed their 
heart far from me, and their fear towards me is taught 
hy the precept of men. 

But have removed their heart far from me ! Mission- 
aries are tried with this in the native churches, and it 
grieves them deeply. But the foreign piety at the Isl- 
ands has much more of the professional and heartless 
in it, than that which is native-born. There are certain 
professors of religion who, with a name to live, do show 
in their walk so little interest in any thing that per- 
tains to life and godliness, that one can hardly believe 
otherwise than that the heart of their religion is quite 
eaten out, or dried up. They have a state of the spir- 
itual being lik*e marasmus or atrophy of the body. 

If their piety has not completely run out and washed 
away, you cannot feel any pulse to prove they have a 



NATIVE AND FOREIGN PIETY* COMPARED. 235 

heart left ; and the principle of spiritual life, if by bare 
possibility it do yet exist, is so feeble and low, that they 
are little better than dead. 

Hence, though living in the midst of a people just 
emerging from heathenism, where the results of the 
Gospel are so benignly shown, and owing their own 
safety and well-being to that Gospel, they yet manifest 
no interest in the missionary's religious work, are never 
seen at the monthly concert- or any prayer-meeting, 
give nothing for the propagation of religion among Ha- 
waiians, have no love for the souls of natives or un- 
civilized humanity anywhere, and would willingly see 
the whole race melt away, and their place supplied by 
a stock they could have more complacency in. 

The same is true of some visitors, and yet more tran- 
sient residents at the Islands, professing piety. They 
do not make themselves acquainted with the nature, 
the trials, or the rewards of missionary work. They 
share in missionaries' hospitality, and avail themselves 
of their aid in travelling from place to place, but have 
little or no sympathy with them in their cares and 
efforts to Christianize the people. 

They see them at their homes generally comfortable 
and happy, sometimes forming some of the happiest 
domestic circles in the world. But they do not enter 
at all into their motives as missionaries, their anxieties, 
harassments, responsibilities, toils 5 and cares. They see 
in the natives a great deal that is offensive, squalid, and 
still heathenish. 

Heathenism, barbarism, and the state of naturej when 



236 . LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

you come to be in contact with them, are stripped of 
all the romance that is apt to invest the life and work 
of a. missionary afar off; and those persons not having 
either depth of piety, or love for souls, or sufficient of 
riddance from selfishness, to become interested like the 
missionary in the personal work of instructing and .con- 
verting them, are actually, in practice, less engaged in 
the cause of missions than they were in America. And 
very likely they may go home and have less sympathy 
for missionaries, less charity for heathen converts, and 
less regard for the great enterprise of the world's evan- 
gelization, than they had before visiting this most high- 
ly favored missionary field. 

But is it with good reason ? No ! but because having 
eyes they see not, having ears they hear not, neither do 
they understand or appreciate missionary work, native 
character, or the allowance that is to be made for early 
training, and the modifying effect even upon true ex- 
perimental piety, of old bad examples, usages, habits, 
and polluting associations. 

I write not without a meaning and a reality of fact in 
the mind's eye, and I cannot help recommending such 
persons to anoint their eyes with the eye-salve of truth 
and charity, that they may see ; to get the crust of 
worldliness and vanity rubbed off from their religious 
sensibilities, which is so apt to form here, and to resort 
earnestly to the medicine of God's word and prayer, 
in order to work off from their systems the poison of 
scandal, which both travellers and residents have been 
heretofore wont to imbibe at the Sandwich Islands. 



THE BENIGN EFFECT OF MISSIONS. 237 

I close this chapter of unique Hawaiian letters with 
one more from a native teacher, of whom Mr. Bond 
says in forwarding it, " The writer is a fine young man, 
one of our most promising teachers. His own entirely 
was the thought to write you, and, according to his 
request, I translate hastily the epistle." 

The spirit of piety it breathes, and the vein of Chris- 
tian simplicity that runs through it, make it well worth 
preserving. And could all my readers see the original 
communication, in its clear, legible handwriting, and 
in a vernacular which, but for the missionaries, would 
still have been kept sealed to all but oral expression, 
they would wonder, even more than men do now, at the 
strange misrepresentations of some persons that the 
Hawaiians are not a Christian people. 

It is a matter of thankfulness that our honored 
American missionaries there resident, are too strongly 
rooted both in the confidence and affection of the 
American Church and nation, for the slanderous asper- 
sions upon the results of their labors to be for a moment 
believed. The success of the Missionary enterprise, as 
demonstrated at the Sandwich Islands, is beyond a 
doubt; and there are thousands of hearts devoutly 
thanking God for it every day, and praying fervently 
that the same glorious results may be realized every- 
where. 

Halaula, Kohala. 
Love to you, Cheever, who hast sent your love and good wishes 
to us. Your letter was received by Bond in November, and -on the 
Sabbath after the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the brethren of 



238 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

this church in Kohala heard of it. Bond declared it to us, and also 
the taurine in Ireland and Scotland, by which men have died. 

This I declare to you : it is a hot season with us in Kohala. The 
ground is very dry because of the sun, and has been so these seven 
months. Yet we are not greatly distressed for food. The water in 
the streams is dry. God has indeed granted us a few drops of 
water from the cloud-place, and the food is benefited thereby. The 
food, however, is scanty — very little. Even in kalo lands, where 
there is always water, the kalo-patches are drying up, and the po- 
tatoes near the streams. 

The Chinaman's sugar-cane near Bond's house is fed up to cattle. 
It is entirely dry. The Chinaman thinks he shall leave Kohala. 
That thought is done. 

Your aloha, (the bell,) here 'it is with us who are here. It calls 
us on Sabbath, Wednesdays, and Saturdays; but here is our fault: 
we do not obey its voice ; children and parents who go to meeting. 
Bond said, " When the bell rings let all come in ;" but we do not 
so; some go in a little while after the bell has done ringing, and 
some stay out. For all meetings it calls us with its ringing voice. 
It can call us as far as three miles. Bond's scholars do not have 
to blow the conch-shell with their mouths now. 

Your love it is that rings constantly ; pulled • by the hand, it 
sounds. 

Much love to you, because of your good counsel to us in the 
work of the Lord. Great was my love to you when I heard from 
Bond this declaration, " Cheever sends love to you, brethren of Ko- 
hala. He says he shall not forget you who live here." Then this 
was my thought to you — Thou art sweet honey to my mind ; as 
cool refreshing water from far among the hills. 

Pray to God for us, you and the brethren, that we may not come 
into distressing famine and death, as we have heard about the suf- 
fering in Ireland and Scotland ; but that we may prosper, as does 
the country of your birth. That great country' aids Great Britain 
with love, and according to the greatness of intelligence in your 



INGENUOUSNESS OF THE HAWAIIAN MIND. 239 

land, in carrying to them without avaricious motives. That just 
consists with God's word, Matthew v. 45 — " That ye may be the 
children of your Father which is in heaven; for he maketh his sun 
to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just 
and on the unjust f\ and 1st Timothy vi. 17, 18 — "Charge them 
that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust 
in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth ms richly al] 
things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, 
ready to distribute, willing to communicate." 

Your people have shown love for man, for the spirit-thing. Great 
indeed was my joy in hearing about it. Great is my love for those 
who are dying in such distress. We have prayed in monthly con- 
cert for the perishing, and have pledged ourselves to aid them. 
God will bless those whose country is distressed by famine. May 
he grant them a fruitful soil, that food may grow abundantly, even 
as the United States has contributed in behalf of Great Britain. 

Love to you, my friend, in the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Pray for us just as we do for you. With Jesus is everlasting love. 
Amen. 

By me, 

John William Kailihalapia. 

Now we challenge the production of any thing in 
the early annals of nations, more demonstrative of the 
genuineness of their evangelization, than such ingenuous, 
childlike workings of the native Polynesian mind, in 
c the first generation after it has come forth in its grave- 
clothes, as it were, out of the utter darkness of heathen- 
ism ! The course of Divine Providence and grace, in 
the regeneration of the Sandwich Islands, is a subject 
for adoring wonder, gratitude, and praise ; and the de- 
velopments of the intellect, as well as of the resources 
of the Islands under the benignant, productive, yea, 



240 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



; 



creative influences of the Gospel, should be matter of 
deepest interest, even to the mere philosopher. 

Witness, also, the following from six native female 
converts at the Sandwich Islands, accompanying a bed- 
quilt by them made and sent to the New York Home 
for the Friendless : 

Kaluaalao, October 29th, 1849 
Our love to you, good people, who live in the great city of New 
York. This is our writing and request unto you, that, you give unto 
those persons dwelling in the House of the Friendless, and orphans, 
this small gift, which we send unto you. 

This is our gift, that we give unto you, one bed-quilt. This is 
our gift, and with it, we send the love of our hearts unto you, in 
whose hearts such love has sprung up, for the friendless ones and 
the orphan children. We are but few who have joined in this work, 
but having heard from our teacher what you were doing, we met 
together, and made a quilt for you to help you in your good work 
for the Friendless and the Orphans. 

No one prompted us to do this thing, we did it of our own accord. 
It was not the rich, it was not our chiefs, it was not our teachers, 
that commanded us to do this ; no, it was from the overflowing love 
of God in our hearts that compelled us to do it ; it was of our own 
free will. We are not rich who do .this, in this world's riches, but 
have been made rich by the Holy Spirit of God, as we hope, and 
therefore we wish to aid you in your good work. 
Yours truly in behalf of the others, 

■ W. Kaluna. 

Of a later date is the following, acknowledging the 
gift of a Communion Service, consisting of four flagons, 
twelve plates, twelve goblets, and two baptismal fonts, 
for the two churches in Hilo and Puna, under the 
pastoral charge of Rev. Titus Coan. 



kupanea's LETTER FKOM HILO. 24:1 

Hilo, Hawaii, July 29th, 1850. 
Salutations to H. T. Cheever, our friend in the Lord, and servant of the 

Most High God : 

We remember you on account of our associating with you at the 
time you abode with our minister, viz.* T. Coan. You were one 
who desired to lead the children of God at Hilo, to wit, the church 
of Hilo, island of Hawaii. 

Express thou our love to thy disciples, viz., the brethren in the 
Lord Jesus. Their love and beneficence have come to us. Like 
your seeing our faces, so is your giving to us the articles necessary 
for the Supper of the Lord, in your true love to us from the heart. 

The love of God first flowed from his people dwelling in America, 
in the year 1820. They conceived their thought and labor without 
doubting, in seeking to pluck us out of the raging heat of death. 
They endured patiently, that wandering spirits might return to the 
place of rest. Their work has been great from the time of the ar- 
rival of the first American missionaries, Bingham, and others, until 
the present time, "the year 1850. At the time of the arrival of the 
missionaries, we were living in the blackness of hearts, and in sins 
so exceeding great that they cannot be expressed on this paper for 
shame and pollution. 

The exceeding love and benevolence of American brethren to- 
wards us is now most manifest, according to the words of Paul, 1st 
Cor. xiii. 8-13. 

Of the life-declaring Apostles whom they sent, first in the year 
1820, one, Whitney, nearly perished in the ocean. He fell into the 
sea ; one threw him a board from the ship, by which he escaped, 
and obtained the vessel. 

They have been patient, that their mission might be fulfilled. 
Two of them, Bingham and Richards, were greatly cursed by op- 
posing foreigners, not for the evil of their works — they labored cor- 
rectly — the wicked opposed them for righteousness' sake, lest their 
mischievousness should be known. 

Through their patience we are now living in peace. Some 

11 



242 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

taught by them, have taken up labors to benefit the kingdom. 
Some have been governors, magistrates, collectors, school-superin- 
tendents, school-trustees, sheriffs, lawyers. Some regulate their own 
affairs. Every tree produces its own specific fruit, according to the 
words of Jesus Christ. 

That stranger and this stranger have brought hither the things 
which are for his own profit to bring, and these little Islands are 
now replenished with things useful to man's body. But this com- 
pany (missionaries) have brought hither an everlasting treasure, a 
good thing which excels all good things which our eyes have 
seen. 

Previous to the year 1820, our houses were dark for want of oil. 
Then we obtained oil without wick, the thing to ignite the lamp ; 
but through the kindness of God which was made to spring up 
within these true friends, they sent us some wicks to kindle our 
lamps, and they now burn, and thus until 1850 their burning has 
increased.* 

As the abundance of your love for the souls of the wild goats 
upon the mountains of the Hawaiian kingdom, so will be the great- 
ness of God's love and blessing on you. As your thought is on 
this church, so, indeed, is our pastor and true friend — not slothful — 
patient amidst all the evils of the way : and this his unslothfulness 
will be a capillary attraction to draw the souls of this people to 
everlasting life. 

Through the constant care of all your friends in this Hawaiian 
kingdom for us, the nation is good, truly dwelling in blessedness 
and peace. 

In the name of the church at Hilo, I am your affectionate brother, 

S. KUPANEA. 



* This figure may seem obscure. The idea is this : The oil brought 
in 1820, was the grace or love of God in the hearts of the missionaries. 
The wicks which came afterwards, were books, preaching, schools, etc., 
which helped the oil to shed light through all the dwellings of Hawaii 



WEROWERO TO QUEEN VICTORIA. 243 

Other parts of the Island World of the Pacific have 
furnished the materials out of which it were easy to 
compile another chapter of Polynesian Literature ; but 
the following must suffice as a specimen of their direct 
and clear way of expressing themselves in letters, in 
groups of islands further south than the Sandwich. 

It will be seen that their rhetoric comes to the point 
very soon, turns corners very sharply, and stops short 
when they have done. The communication is from a 
New Zealand Chief, and occasioned by the death of a 
governor who had been sent out there by the British 
Crown. 



Good Lady Victoria, how farest thou % Great is my love to you, 
who are residing in your country. My subject is, A governor for 
us and the foreigners of this island. Let him be a good man. 
Look out for a good man, a man of judgment. Let not a troubler 
come here. Let not a boy come here, or one puffed up with pride. 
We, the New Zealanders, shall be afraid. Let him be as good as 
this governor who has just died. Mother Victoria, let your instruc- 
tions to the foreigner be good. Let him be kind. Let him not 
come here to kill us, seeing that we are peaceable. Formerly we 
were a bad people, a murdering people ; now we are sitting peace- 
ably. We have left off the evil. It was you appointed this line of 
conduct, and therefore it is good to us. Mother, be kind. 

From me, 

Werowero. 



244 LIFE EST THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



CHAPTER XI. 

RIDE AROUND THE ISLAND OF OAHIL, AND NOTES BY THE WAY. 

Portia. — Good sentences, and well pronounced. 

Nerissa. — They would be better, if well followed. 

Portia.— -If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, 
chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages, princes' palaces. 
It is a good divine that follows his own instructions : I can easier teach 
twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to 
follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, 
but a hot temper leaps over a cold decree. 

Merchant of Venice, 

We return to Honolulu — Festivities of the anniversary of Independence — Effect upon 
public morals — Natural hankering after the leeks and flesh-pots of heathenism — 
Converts from paganism now and in the apostles' day, one and the same — Compari- 
son instituted— We mount for Kaneohe— Visit by the way to the country villa of the 
king and chiefs— Work, trial, and reward of the pastor at Kaneohe— Mistaken ti- 
midity in admitting to the church — Arguments for and against —Corroborative views 
of Isaac Taylor — Practicalworking of an open church polity and a close one con- 
trasted—Going to Egypt for the corn of scandal — Much ado about nothing— Leonato 
to Antonio — We halt at Waialua — Contrasts of natural scenery — Kaneohe the sup- 
posed pit of an old volcano — Toilsome descent— Picturesque view from its brink — 
Face of the country between the two stations— Hospitality of a teacher at Hauula— 
Deportment of natives met with on the way — The stale charge of hypocrisy con- 
sidered—No new thing for religion to be pressed into the service of selfishness — 
Examples of double dealing in the Pacific, by foreigners— Prevalent forms of self- 
deception among the natives — Causes assigned — Treatment of cases when discovered 
— Rigor of church discipline— The usages of the church an education for Repub- 
licanism—The future Republic of the Pacific— A prophecy ventured. 

One night's sail of seventy miles in the little govern- 
ment schooner Victoria, transfers us from the college of 
Hawaiian youth at Lahainaluna, Maui, to the island of 
Oahu ; where we find the king and his court keeping 
the annual feast on the anniversary of the giving back 



ANNIVERSARY FESTIVITIES AT HONOLULU. 245 

to him his kingdom by the good Admiral Thomas. 
Those festivities were rather inconsiderately prolonged 
through three days, and cost the government much 
money, besides leading to more waste and dissipation 
on the part of individuals, and giving too free rein to 
the sensual mind of a people just getting up from the 
long debauch of heathenism. 

The pastors at Honolulu found a strong current of 
worldliness and sensuality setting there some time after 
the feast ; and there was a revival of a species of hea- 
thenism, for which some church members even had to 
be disciplined. The common people, after the example 
of their rulers, feasted themselves in squads. 

They would get together, pray, then eat and drink, 
sing meles, (old native songs,) and indulge in other ex- 
cesses; and there was a strong hankering after old 
heathenish pleasures, which they would like to baptize 
with a Christian name ; like some of the love-feasts of 
the Corinthian and other converts, where one was hun- 
gry and another drunken / at which they counted it 
pleasure to riot in the day-time ; feeding themselves 
without fear, sporting themselves with their own de- 
ceivings, having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot 
cease from; sin. 

Without the Gospel, men everywhere, be they savage 
or civilized, are constantly tending downward. And 
when this tendency seems arrested, and some steps have 
been taken- upward, there is still a gravitation in the 
sensual mind towards evil, which has to be watched 
against and counteracted, if we would keep an indi- 



246 LIFE EST THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

vidual or a people progressing. Human nature, it is 
remarked by Taylor, in his "Ancient Christianity," 
however much it may have been raised above its ordi- 
nary level in particular instances, has always quickly 
subsided, and been substantially the same in every age 
and country. 

Ancient and modern heathenism are of much the 
same type. The one in the Apostles' day had little to 
boast over the other in this. It took longer to purge 
out the old leaven from some of the primitive churches ; 
and many of the converts then (it is manifest from 
Paul's own epistles) were not at all more stable— ^we 
doubt if as much so — or spiritually-minded, than some 
of the converts in these days at the Sandwich Islands. 

A favorite ride and walk of twelve miles north from 
Honolulu, brings the traveller on Oahu to Kaneohe, 
one of the three out-stations on this island, of which 
the population, by the late census, is twenty-one thou- 
sand three hundred and sixty-three. You turn out of 
town on an excellent road near the large adobe and 
grass meeting-house of the Rev. Lowell Smith, belong- 
ing to the second church of Honolulu. The scenery of 
the Nuuanu Valley, with all its cultivated kalo-beds, 
cascades, cottages, and romantic mountain sides, is 
highly beautiful and unique. 

Stewart's Journal of a Residence at the Sandwich 
Islands has made it familiar to many readers. And 
there is no one who has ridden through it up to the 
" Pali," but can testify that his glowing description has 
no more than done it justice. 



THE KING'S VILLA IN THE VALLEY. 247 

About five miles up the valley, we stopped at a large 
unfinished house belonging to the king, in a grove of 
ancient koa-trees, where the chief boys and girls were 
rusticating a while with the family of their missionary 
teachers. They make an exceedingly well-behaved and 
happy company. All of them, to the number of six- 
teen, talk English with considerable fluency ; and their 
entire aspect and bearing reflect much credit upon the 
fidelity and tact of their amiable guardians. The king 
is fond of riding up there, and takes great pleasure in 
the school, often expressing his sense of its utility, and 
wishing there had been such a school for him when 
a lad. 

Rev. Mr. Parker, of Kaneohe, a patient missionary 
there for sixteen years, up to 1850, was greatly tried 
when I knew him, with the stupidity, the sensual ten- 
dency, and the disposition to deceive among his people ; 
and he was consequently very slow in admitting to the 
church. He was of opinion then that the stone Meet- 
ing-house which he had built by dint of hard labor, 
some help from other native churches, and the savings 
of his own family, would in two Sabbaths be crowded 
to more than its capacity, if he should have a meeting 
of those out of the church, propound a few of them for 
admission, and call another meeting of inquirers. 

They would think the Jcumu is now opening the puka 
(door) of the church, if not of heaven, and would run 
from every quarter to get in. There was a revival 
movement in his district in the year 1844, but out of a 
company of three hundred inquirers he admitted but 



248 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 






five, because he feared their hypocrisy, and thought he 
could have more hold of them out of the church, but as 
instructed candidates for it, than when in. 

Since that period there has been another religious 
awakening in his district, from which more fruit was 
cautiously gathered into the church ; and the Minutes 
of 1848 show that there have been received in all into 
the Kaneohe church, by profession and certificate, from 
the time of its formation, three hundred members. 

"With all deference to the principles and conscientious 
fears of the pastor there, and of a few others who think 
like him, I cannot help expressing the opinion that a 
very close and rigid policy, as the rule of admission to 
Hawaiian churches, is a mistaken one. To say nothing 
of the propriety of using all suitable means to keep up 
a congregation, in order that a missionary may not 
preach to bare walls, we argue that if a man preach 
the true Gospel of Christ, and pray sincerely for a 
blessing, and there appear at times good evidence of 
the presence of the Holy Spirit, it is but reasonable to 
believe, in the absence of strong evidence to the con- 
trary, that this same Divine Agent completes the work 
of regeneration in many souls that seem earnestly feel- 
ing, it may be, groping through thick darkness after 
God. 

And when, as at all missionary stations, through ig- 
norance and imperfections, both in him who judges, 
and in those whose conversion is to be judged of, the 
evidence of certainty cannot be had, we do not think 
that the fear of receiving some hypocrites should keep 



OPEN AND CLOSE CHURCH POLITY CONTRASTED. 249 

a minister from admitting to the church, a goodly num- 
ber of those who seem to have been wrought upon by 
the Holy Spirit, who profess repentance and faith, who 
pray and abandon outward sins, and who desire to be 
taken into the fellowship of saints. 

Isaac Taylor very properly remarks in the History of 
Fanaticism, that " the duty of those, whether they be 
the few or the many, to whose hands are intrusted ec- 
clesiastical powers, is not that of a Ehadamanthus. Re- 
sponsibility does not stretch beyond natural powers, 
and it is quite certain that men have no power to search 
each other's bosoms ; nor should they think themselves 
charged with any such endeavor. The pretender and 
the hypocrite belong always to Divine jurisdiction ; the 
Church will be asked to give no account of them, so 
long as they successfully conceal the fatal fact of their 
insincerity. Let but a community be more or less ex- 
tended in its sphere, be pure in manners — pure, not 
sanctimonious ; let the Scriptures be universally and 
devoutly read by its private members, and honestly ex- 
pounded by its teachers ; and in this case it will be 
very little annoyed by the intrusion of heretical or li- 
centious candidates." 

If they arc not so embraced and taken care of in the 
Church, they are liable, w r eak and unsteady as the un- 
disciplined mind is, to wander and stumble as sheep 
without a shepherd, to fall at length into darkness and 
sin, to lose patience and hope, and cease praying to- 
gether, and to fall, perhaps, into the clutches of the 
Man of Sin. . 

11* 



250 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Rather than that this should ensue with any of God's 
elect, or that any who are truly seeking him should be 
balked and lose their souls, it were better that many 
w T olves in sheep's clothing get within the consecrated 
ground of the Church. The conversion of spurious 
professors here is by no means so doubtful or difficult 
a thing as when they get into the churches in Ameri- 
ca ; and at the worst, they can be turned out when dis- 
covered. 

The state of things at Kaneohe, and at the next sta- 
tion of "Waialua, is confirmative of these views. Many 
have become slack and indifferent, and have left off 
going to meeting, saying the way to the church is long, 
and have given up heart, and hope, and effort alto- 
gether. 

The Catholics have a priest not far from there, and 
he has gained some, together with the control of one 
hundred of their children, not because they really think 
the Popish w r ay is the right way, but because, by their 
own confession, they are tired of waiting upon their 
kumu, (teacher,) and have an itching desire to be 
sprinkled and housed in some church, with a lurking 
belief — by no means unknown to wiser minds in Chris- 
tian lands — that somehow they are more likely to be 
saved in the Church, than unbaptized out of it. 

It is natural there should be a difference of opinion 
as to how such cases are to be prevented, or treated 
when found, among a people with whom a profession of 
religion is so popular. No one can deny that the whole 
subject of admitting to the Church is beset with difficul- 



TWO ASPECTS OF NATIVE CHURCHES. 251 

ties. Perhaps the more conscientious and orthodox the 
pastor, the greater will be his quandary. 

It is but fair . that those who are interested in and 
support missionaries, should be made acquainted as far 
as possible with their trials, and what they have to con- 
tend with, the deceit and hypocrisy of native character, 
the degradation and vileness of the native mind. If 
the dark side of native character, and the dark aspect 
of native churches, have been heretofore* too much with- 
held from the public, as some think, there is more 
reason that both sides should be given now, in order 
that erroneous views may be corrected, and the truth 
arrived at by comparison, so far as it can be ascertained 
by those who are not on the spot to see things as they 
are, and as no reports can possibly exhibit them. 

* Travellers who visit missionary establishments sometimes con- 
tribute to existing errors. If they write in favor of them, they wish to 
do it to some purpose ; they wish, of course, to be popular, in an age 
which asks for new and exciting matter from the press. Hence we 
have seen books professing to give the state of things at the Society, 
Sandwich, and even Marquesas Islands, written in a style of extrava- 
gance, adapted rather to gratify than to inform the reader. There are 
other travellers who fall into the other extreme. It is a point with 
them to show that the missionary enterprise does no good ; that it im- 
poverishes and depopulates the Islands, and that the natives who sur- 
vive its pestilential influence are made more idle, filthy, and vicious. 
The reader needs not to be informed that it is an old usage among men 
to comfort one's own conscience, by an effort to lay its guilt on the back 
of another. Neither does the public, we presume, need to be informed 
that if any one goes down into Egypt after the corn of scandal — the 
sins of missionaries — he will find the stewards of the granaries on board 
his craft before he can anchor, and the sack filled, and the money also 
returned in the sack's mouth— at so cheap a rate do they supply the 
wants of their brethren. — Hawaiian Spectator, Yol. i. p. 99. 



252 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



Therefore we have been always ready, in these pages, 
to state facts as they have fallen in our way, and to 
make it known when we differ as to how difficulties 
should be surmounted, and trials met ; at the same time 
not forgetting the proverb which says of grief ironically, 
that every one can master it but he that hath it ; nor 
letting slip one of those sayings of Shakspeare's heroine 
which I have put at the head of this chapter, I can 

EASIER TEACH TWENTY WHAT WERE GOOD TO BE DONE, 
THAN TO BE ONE OF THE TWENTY TO FOLLOW MINE OWN 
TEACHING. 

We can easily point out faults and errors in others, 
and commend them to patience and fidelity in suffering 
and duty ; but it is quite another thing always to act in 
just the right way ourselves, or to be and to do what 
we recommend wisely to others. How finely does 
Leonato say to Antonio in the drama of Much Ado 
About Nothing — 

Brother, men 
Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief, 
Which they themselves not feel ; but, tasting it, 
Their counsel turns to passion, which before 
Would give preceptial medicine to rage, 
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread, 
Charm ache with air, and agony with words ; 
No, no ; 'tis all men's office to speak patience 
To those that wring under the load of sorrow ; 
But no man's virtue, nor sufficiency, 
To be so moral, when he shall endure 
The like himself: therefore give me no counsel. 
My griefs cry louder than advertisement. 
I pray thee, peace : I will be flesh and blood ; 
For there was never yet philosopher, 
That could endure the tooth-ache patiently ; 



SUPPOSED PIT OF AN OLD VOLCANO. 253 

However they have writ the style. of gods, 
And made a pish at chance and sufferance. 

There is seldom seen, even in Hawaii-nei, where the 
extremes of fruitfulness and aridity often meet, a greater 
difference in the external aspect of two places, than 
appears at the present time between Kaneohe and Wai- 
alua> at which latter missionary station we have now 
arrived in the course of our travels around Oahu. 

At Kaneohe, directly around the mission premises, 
and all the way up to the lofty precipice which breaks 
it off from the Valley of Nuuanu, on the Honolulu side, 
there are grassy knolls, running brooks, and green 
meadows of great fertility, alternating within the com- 
pass of ten or fifteen miles. ' There is good evidence 
that the entire district was once a volcanic crater. It 
is hemmed in on all sides, except seaward, by lofty 
basaltic and lava precipices, just like the sides of Hale-a- 
ka-la. Nothing can be more picturesque and charming 
than the first view you get of it from the brow of the 
Pali. 

There you stand, if the fierce rush of the trades will 
let you, at least two thousand feet above the diversified 
grassy basin below, and look away over the rich land- 
ft scape of calm sunshine and shade, blended by distance 
into a mellow unity, along the aspiring cliffs, and off 
" o'er the waters of the dark blue sea," till they rise up 
in the distant horizon to a level with the plane of your 
eye. 

The descent is so long and difficult by a zigzag in the 
almost upright wall of the Pali, like the celebrated Es- 



254 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



troza Pass in the island, of Madeira, that one has to 
take the best heed to his steps who will go down there. 
And if a man's rectus and vasti muscles, the semitendi- 
nosus and biceps flexor cruris, do not ach$ after it, it 
must be because his legs are made without them. 

When once fairly down, the way to the station, four 
or five miles, is clear over the greensward; and you 
look back with wonderment at the vast walls and ram- 
parts, of -which no power less than volcanic could have 
been the architect, or could ever have rent from them, 
and sunk to nearly a level with the sea, the great sub- 
jacent plain over which you are passing. 

The way thence to Waialua is forty miles to the 
westward, along the sea, often on the beach. At the 
point where you emerge from what may be called the 
great crater of Kaneohe, the precipice is cut off plumb 
down to a level with the sea, making a wall on your 
left of eight or ten hundred feet perpendicular height. 
There are several villages to be passed through where 
the Catholics are numerous. 

Fish-ponds are fenced-in all along, and there are 
many little bays and bights of the ocean which, to- 
gether with the grassy and gentle line of the coast, form 
an unusual variety in Hawaiian natural scenery, and a 
fine contrast to the deep cuts and bold mountains fur- 
ther inland. The country on all that side of the island 
is well watered, and holds out many inducements for 
settlement to Hawaiians ; yet the population is but five 
thousand, and that decreasing. 

I stopped to rest and bathe at a place called Hauula, 



DEPORTMENT OF NATIVES MET ON THE WAY. 255 

where a line for the teacher from Mr. Parker, procured 
me entertainment as readily as if I had been an envoy 
of the king. He at once unsaddled my horse, and put 
him to grass, broke me a stalk of sugar-cane, baked a 
fowl and potatoes, and entertained me an hour with a 
simple, easy hospitality, while I used up all the Ha- 
waiian I ever learned, and maltreated a good deal more, 
in answering and asking questions. 

On the way from his house, I fell in with companies 
of native men and women, some of whom mistaking 
the traveller for a sailor, by a pea-jacket spread upon 
my saddle, behaved themselves in a way which proved 
two things — both what sort of indecencies are agreeable 
to the foreigners with whom they generally have to do, 
and that they deport themselves very differently before 
a man whom they believe to be not a missionary, nor 
a missionary's friend, and one who is. 

I might probably have learned more had I stopped, 
and had I thought it quite right to play the part of the 
character they took me for. This I could not do for 
three reasons : First, the knowledge that a man's own 
feelings and state of mind are very likely to become, 
even against his will, those of the man whose actions 
and words he imitates. Second, real truth and virtue 
are unwilling to dissemble, and feel disgraced, like a 
chaste virgin, to be taken for what they are not. Third, 
because an honest man hates deception in any form, 
and feels conscience-struck and sorry ever to allow it, 
or not frankly to show what he is. 

Knowledge of Hawaiians, or of any other persons, 



256 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

gained in such a way, would be too dear bought, and 
one had better remain in ignorance than get it at such. 
a sacrifice. The lawfulness of deceit *for a good pur- 
pose .was held by some of the Fathers, and along with 
cunning priests to tend the loom, it may be said to 
have woven the pall of night that covered the Dark 
Ages. It is held by Romanists still. But an honest 
man and a Protestant possesses in his bosom a light of 
conscience, that puts to the blush such a maxim of time- 
serving expediency. . 

He knows, (says Coleridge with his usual earnest- 
ness,) that by sacrificing the law of his reason to the 
maxim of pretended prudence, he purchases the sword 
with the loss of the arm that is to wield it. The duties 
which we owe to our own moral being, are the ground 
and condition of all other duties ; and to set our nature 
at strife with itself for a good purpose, implies the same 
sort of prudence as a priest of Diana would have mani- 
fested, who should have proposed to dig up the cele- 
brated charcoal foundations of the mighty Temple of 
Ephesus, in order to furnish fuel for the burnt-offerings 
upon its altars. 

You hear nothing oftener in the mouths of irreligious 
foreigners, than that missionaries don't know the na- 
tives, that they don't act out before them, and that they 
are great hypocrites. Now we think the missionaries 
might know it by this time, through being told of it so 
often, if not by their own observation. And the truth 
is, they do know it well, and mourn over it, and en- 
deavor to keep on their guard against it. 



FOREIGNERS AND NATIVES COMPARED. 257 

But they are not so ignorant of history or other men, 
as to believe hypocrisy, and falsehood, and double-play 
peculiar to Hawaii ans. Hypocrisy is not monopolized 
by Hawaiians, nor will it die out of the world with 
them. They cannot be called a community of hypo- 
crites w T ith any more propriety than a foreigner should 
call the people of the United States so, because in the 
first steamboat or railroad-car he might take passage in, 
he should see posted up in large letters^ look out for 

ROGUES AND PICKPOCKETS. 

Other barbarians, both the instructed and uninstruct- 
ed, evince as much deceit as these Hawaiians, and most 
of them more ; and I have little doubt that the history 
of the intercourse of white men, of Anglo-Saxons, and 
Anglo-Americans with these islanders and those of the 
Pacific generally,* would reveal more falsehood, treach- 
ery, and double-dealing on their part, and lead an un- 
prejudiced mind to the conclusion that there was at 



* The author of the bold Polynesian romance entitled " Typee," very 
properly remarks that the enormities perpetrated in the. South Seas 
upon some of the inoffensive islanders well-nigh pass belief. These 
things are seldom proclaimed at home ; they happen at the very ends 
of the earth; they are done in a corner, and there are none to reveal 
them. But there is, nevertheless, many a petty trader that has navi- 
gated the Pacific, whose course from island to island might be traced by 
a series of cold-blooded robberies, kidnappings, and murders, the iniquity 
of which might be considered almost sufficient to sink her guilty tim- 
bers to the bottom of the sea. It may be asserted without fear of 
contradiction, that in all the cases of outrages committed by Polynesians, 
Europeans have been at some time or other the aggressors, and that the 
cruel and blood-thirsty disposition of some of the islanders is mainly to 
be ascribed to the influence of such examples. 



258 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

least as large an infusion of . these amiable quali- 
ties in their composition as in that of the red-skinned 
race. 

Hypocrisy and deception do not belong pre-eminently 
even to savages, but to human nature. They are not 
the monopoly and trade of barbarians merely, but they 
are diffused as widely as the human race. Perhaps 
they stand out more glaringly on the page of history, 
than any other vices to which men are subject. 

Especially has religious hypocrisy been exhibited 
wherever religion has been known, the former being, 
as it is often remarked, a homage paid to the latter, of 
which, indeed, it only proves the reality and excellence, 
just as counterfeit dollars and doubloons in circulation 
prove that there are real ones too, for no one would 
take the pains to counterfeit that which was not valu- 
able and did not exist. 

And if religion has in all times, especially in highly 
civilized countries, been made the stalking-horse and 
shoeing-horn to selfishness, whereby unprincipled men 
have ridden into place and power, why should it be 
thought strange that many of the Hawaiians, among 
whom religion has become popular, and a passport to 
reputation and confidence — why is it strange that they 
should be found running after it, and assuming its sem- 
blance, in order to get its good I 

If bad men in other lands have so often made it the 
cloak of sinister designs, why is it wonderful that in 
Hawaii-nei natives should now and then be found trying 
to wrap it round their rottenness, in order to hide the 






RIGOR OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE. 259 

gaping sores of their moral corruption, as well from 
their own eyes as from the sight of others ! 

I believe this latter use is less often, made of religion 
here than elsewhere. When Hawaiians profess repent- 
ance and faith, and act the hypocrite, it is either as 
self-deceived, or that they may get the favor of their 
minister, and entrance into the Church as a means of 
grace and salvation — very seldom (if we are not mis- 
taken) as self-known deceivers, wearing the character- 
istic mark of hypocrisy, and in order to cover up and 
carry .on some ulterior design. 

Often, as in all societies, after the committal they 
have made of themselves has led them to break off out- 
ward sins, and they are safely housed in the Church, 
and the novelty and excitement of their new estate and 
relations has worn off and become stale, then iniquities 
prevail against them, their corruptions return too strong 
to be resisted by unregenerate human nature, they yield 
and are disclosed to themselves and their brethren as 
having been " hypocrites," if that term be preferred to 
self-deceived and deceivers, which in this case it cer- 
tainly means. 

If there be not immediate repentance upon the dis- 
closure of guilt, such persons are cut off. If there be, 
they are suspended for a time, till it is clear what they 
are, and then, if giving good evidence, they are re- 
stored ; if not, excommunicated. Who will say that 
this is not right? or who can point out a better 
way ? 

It may be remarked here, that the usages and dis- 



260 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

cipline of the Christian Church are doing for Hawaii- 
ans what the same causes did for the founders of New 
England, that is, preparing them for self-government 
and republicanism. As the Republican State in New 
England found its germ in the Republican Congrega- 
tional Church which preceded it ; and as the principle 
of individual equality and representation, first prac- 
tically Exemplified in. the constitution of the Church, 
was thence transferred to the constitution of the State, 
in like manner is the present generation of Hawaiians 
in a process of training, under its religious teachers, for 
civil liberty. 

The result will doubtless be to develop the capacity 
of self-government, and in due time to rear a flourish- 
ing Republic in the Heart of the Pacific. A virtual, 
colony as it will then be from the United StateSj found- 
ed by American Christianity and American Commerce 
united, and linked, as it will speedily become, to our 
Pacific and Atlantic seaboards by steamer and tele- 
graph, it may suitably be adopted into the sisterhood 
• of American States. 

Hawaiian Senators and Representatives may ere long 
take their seats in the Capitol, at Washington, with 
members from Minnesota, Utah, Deseret, New Mexico, 
and Santa Fe. The Star of Hawaii may yet blaze in the 
flag of the American Union; and the sons of her present 
missionaries, together with native-born Kanaka Maole 
from the Island Heart of the Pacific, may yet mingle in 
debate on the floor of the American Congress, and the 
voice of Senatorial eloquence from the luxurious tropics 



BURKE OK THE BROTHERHOOD OF NATIONS. 261 

may yet awaken echoes from the hardy North. May 
propitious Heaven speed the augury ! 

And may that happy consummation of universal 
brotherhood among all the nations be soon realized, of 
which Edmund Burke said in his place in the British 
parliament : I believe, my lords, that the sun, in his 
beneficent progress round the world, does not behold a 
more glorious sight than that of men, separated from a 
remote people by the material bounds and barriers of 
nature, united by the bond of a social and moral com- 
munity. 






262 LIFE W THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



CHAPTER XII. 

SIDE VIEWS OF HAWAIIAN CHARACTER AND DESTINY. 

Polonius. — If circumstances lead me, I will find 

Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed 

Within the centre. — 

Tis too much proved, that with devotion's visage, 

And pious action, we do sugar o'er 

The devil himself. — Hamlet. 

Relative position and fortunes of the posterity of Shem and Japheth — Practical bearing 
upon the labors of missionaries— The ground principle of success — Variety of talents 
called into exercise— How to be beloved and useful — Study of books, versus the 
study of human nature— Something had and something wanting at Waialua — A 
maxim gathered from observation — Management of cases of casuistry — A common 
weakness commented upon — Difference of behavior between sentimental and genu- 
ine sorrow — The acting of a fine mind when sin or grief-stricken, and that of a coarse 
mind^The Hawaiian infirmity illustrated by a fact— The pea-hen everywhere— Na- 
tive volubility and destitution of shame— Charities of the Waialua church — A man- 
ual labor school — How established and why abandoned — We journey to Ewa— A suc- 
cessful experiment at self-support — Remarkable proof of disinterestedness — Progress 
reported — Honor to whom honor is due — Fact and cause of the nation's decay — Alarm- 
ing statistics — Report of a committee on moral reform — Responsibility of foreigners 
who have fed the national vice — Moral strength of the government now and former- 
ly — Suppression of vice the duty of magistrates — Plea of virtue and humanity — 
Sophisms of the selfish and impure— Righteous reasonings of the duke in the moral 
play of Measure for Measure. 

The future of nations and of individuals is absolutely 
known to Omniscience only. The issues and destinies 
of ages to come, God alone can explore, on whom they 
depend. A guess beyond the present, or a rational 
judgment of the future by the past, is all that the wisest 
of uninspired men can venture. There are thinking 
men of the race now dominant in the world, who judge 






ORIENTAL AND OCCIDENTAL RACES COMPARED. 263 



that all the nations of the earth descended from Shem, 
(including the Indians of North and South America, 
the races of Oceanica, and the kingdoms of the East,) 
have already reached that point of degradation or of 
fixedness observed by ethnologists, from which neither 
individuals nor nations are disposed of themselves to 
rise, and from which the Most High is seldom dis- 
posed to raise them. They are to be irrecoverably 
absorbed, — according to the prophecy, God shall enlarge 
Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem — in 
the posterity of that son of Noah to whom Europe was 
given. 

Be it that many of them as individuals may be con- 
verted and saved, they cannot survive much longer as 
nations. The decree has gone out against them — proph- 
ecy must be fulfilled. Embracing Christianity will not 
save them from decay, though it may save their souls. 
They have sunk too low, and have become diseased too 
mortally, to be raised and live. Repentance comes too 
late for their national salvation, as to a man who has 
ruined his constitution by excess, past the sanative 
reach of reform. The process of extermination before 
the favored posterity of Japheth, is too far under way, 
and too surely predetermined, to be arrested now. 

Now, how much soever of theoretic truth and Scrip- 
ture evidence such opinions may have for their basis, 
yet, when much dwelt upon, and constantly compared 
in the mind with all facts that look that way, it is 
hardly possible that they should not blunt the edge of 
appetite for missionary work, and disable the sword- 



264: LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

arm for nervous thrusts at the powers of Pagan dark- 
ness. 

The mind will be naturally reasoning — My labor here 
is comparatively hopeless and of little account; how 
much better to be expending my energies for immor- 
tality upon the race of Anglo-Saxons that is to live and 
inherit the earth, than upon a degraded people that are 
soon to die out and become extinct, and their memorial 
to perish with them ! 

Such reasonings, like the notions Satan started in 
Paradise, when he sat 

Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve, 
Assaying by his devilish art to reach 
The organs of her fancy, and with them forge 
Illusions, as he list— 

disturb and divert the mind from its -proper work ; 

Thence raise distempered, discontented thought, 
Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires, 
Blown up with high conceits, engendering pride. 

It is no more possible for a missionary, than for a 
clergyman in service elsewhere, to pay the debt to his 
profession which Lord Bacon says every professional 
man owes, nisi nodes atque dies in hoc' studio consumat. 
All his days and nights must be given to studies and 
employments that have a steady bearing upon his great 
work, and tend either to enlarge his capacity, or aug- 
ment and burnish his intellectual armor, or to throw 
the light of his individual reason and experience upon 
the duties of his profession, for the benefit of others. 

It is not, indeed, for one man to say to another how 



THE MISCELLANEOUS WORK OF MISSIONARIES. 2(55 

much or how little he may diverge from his main pur- 
suit, or whether literary diversions be compatible or not 
with the duties of a missionary. We can only lay 
down the general principle, that both ministerial and 
missionary work demands the entire energies of those 
who are dedicated thereto. In order to be at all emi- 
nent or successful, experience has proved that the man 
must be totus in illis. Give thyself wholly to them — 
Make full proof of thy ministry — Do cell the work of 
an evangelist — is the charge of the Apostle. To divide 
the strength is to weaken it, and one's profession in- 
evitably suffers. 

Examination of the yearly minutes of the Hawaiian 
Mission, and a bird's-eye view of the business they lay 
out for themselves, every one or two years at general 
meeting, as well as the personal inspection of them at 
their several stations, would satisfy any one that there 
is no chance in Hawaii-nei for laziness. There is work 
enough, both professional and miscellaneous, to keep 
them all busy ; and there is full exercise, in one way or 
another, for all gifts and talents, inventive, administra- 
tive, executive ; teaching, preaching, organizing, build- 
ing, improving in every way. 

Some of the missionaries excel in preaching, and 
some in teaching ; others, again, in translating and book- 
making ; and others in devising and constructing new 
ways and means of operation upon the native mind, 
whereby it shall develop and educate itself. 

Some pastors, by reason of their impulsive, sanguine 
temperaments, strong faith, and fervent zeal, are eager 

12 



266 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

to introduce candidates early into the Christian ordi- 
nances of baptism and the Lord's Supper. Others, 
again, may have shown an excess of carefulness in ad- 
mitting to the Church, an extreme of skepticism on the 
subject of native piety, and the knportant lack in their 
intercourse with Hawaiians, of the affable temper of 
Milton's 

Sociable spirit Raphael, that deigned 

To travel with Tobias, and secured 

His marriage with the seven-times wedded maid. 

We have put it down as a maxim that no man can 
be beloved or popular, as a missionary or a man, in 
Hawaii-nei, who is not either from natural disposition, 
or in default of that, from purpose and policy, particu- 
larly patient, condescending, and social in his inter- 
course with the people. Any one that cannot be so, or 
who will not make up his mind to exercise much self- 
denial, and spend considerable of his time in- talking 
with the natives, receiving calls, and listening to their 
manaos, (thoughts,) had better not come. 

The most beloved and best missionaries are the most 
easy and gracious in their dealings with the natives. 
You cannot be cold and reserved, or keep them at a 
distance, without keeping away their confidence and 
love. There must be much gentleness, a kind, obliging 
temper, and a considerable degree of familiarity al- 
lowed, or their regard for you will be slight, and your 
'influence over them inconsiderable. 

It is much more agreeable to nature to commune in 
one's study with books, or to be enjoying the society of 



THE TRUE POLICY FOE A MISSIONARY. 267 

family and friends, than waiting upon ignorant though 
well-meaning Kanakas, that can add nothing to one's 
intellectual stores, patiently unravelling their hihias, 
(moral entanglements,) listening to the tale of their cor- 
ruptions, or sitting in judgment upon their strifes. But 
all this must • be willingly submitted to if a man. will 
gain influence, and will not quite forego the fruit of his 
labors. There must be a mutual love and confidence 
begotten between pastor and people by these offices, or 
the good that can be done is almost nothing. 

There is one part of the pastor's discipline at Waialua 
that commends itself as wise, and worthy of imitation 
among more cultivated people than Hawaiians. I mean 
the way he deals with cases both of gross and minor 
delinquency, where yet the offenders are not cut off. 
"When church members have confessed to him sin, or it 
has been found out in any way, and they seem penitent, 
he confesses it in their stead, and rebukes them publicly 
before the church on the days of communion, rather 
than let them confess at length themselves, and lay bare 
the deep ulcers of their souls, with the horrid kind, of 
delight that some men seem to have in exposing their 
own depravity. 

No careful observer who has been much conversant 
with men in religious matters, can fail to have taken 
notice of the secret pleasure which some persons have 
in detailing their sins, criminating themselves, and mi- 
nutely relating the circumstances of their guilt. Tou 
hear such confessions sometimes in church-meetings, to 
let brethren and sisters know how wicked they have 



268 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

been ; but it is almost always of sins that were, and 
that had better be let alone, except to mourn over them 
before God ; seldom of those to which the man is now 
habituated, and that are a real stumbling-block in his 
business and family. 

The pastor often listens to them with surprise and 
sorrow in private. Sometimes they are protruded be- 
fore promiscuous assemblies, with a wanton though con- 
cealed pleasure, to be detected by an acute observer, 
arising from the self-instituted comparison which the 
confessor makes, and which he supposes his hearers to 
be making also, between his past wickedness and pres- 
ent goodness, and from the supposed imputation to him- 
self of humility in the minds of others, for being will- 
ing to make such disclosures of his sins. 

There is not a little of this to be observed in the 
publicly related experiences of reformed drunkards, of 
whom he is thought to be the most entertaining, and is 
made the lion, who can tell the most terrible tale in his 
own person, (Quce-qtie ipse miserrima vidi, et quorum 
pars magna fui^) of the degradation and woe, the 
bestiality and filth, of intemperance. We shrewdly 
suspect these public experience-tellers of sometimes 
adding a thing or two, like the venders of the last 
words of noted pirates and highwaymen, in order to 
make out a case, and horrify, and get it to go the 
better. 

And we think there is no small danger of the public 
taste becoming vitiated by the disgusting exhibitions 
that are sometimes made. Certain it is that in all such 



A COMMON WEAKNESS CONSIDEEED. 269 

confessions, (those first spoken of,) there is more of 
pride than of conscious shame, or humble grief, or glory 
to GocL They are alike unedifying to those to whom 
they are made, and to those by whom they are made, 
except for the relief they now and then give to a bur- 
dened conscience. 

True shame and repentance for private sins does not 
seek the meeting-house, but the closet, to confess in ; not 
the itching ears of men, but the ear of the all-hearing 
God. It says to him, like David, Against thee, thee 
only have I sinned and done evil in thy sight. If the 
sin has been public, and an injury to men, then indeed 
will genuine repentance suggest the reasonableness of 
making a public confession, and seeking pardon of men 
as well as of God. But it is, if we mistake not, with 
heart-felt sorrow for sin as with deep-felt grief for some 
bereavement : both seek solitude to pray and mourn 
in, and ask not a stranger's intermeddling therewith. 

"We always conclude that an affliction is not felt very 
deeply, that the barbed iron of sorrow has not entered 
into the soul, when it can be spoken of with every caller 
or guest, and the wound it has made in the sensibilities 
handled and shown. It argues a superficial and vola- 
tile, rather than a deep-suffering mind, to be able to say 
much about its sorrow. A heart deeply wounded shuns 
the sympathy and sight of all but God and a few bosom 
friends. Its anguish cannot be told and shared with 
many. The keenly felt trial or bereavement must be 
touched gently, and will not be talked about as a com- 
mon theme. 



270 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

It is only the sentimental and selfish mourner, pierced 
but skin-deep, yet nursing its grief, fostering its slothful 
love and dainty sympathy, that can be fluent and fre- 
quent upon the subject of it. Hence the language of 
Cowper, who copied what he wrote from the tablet of 
his own experience, 

To him that e'er has felt the sting of sorrow, 
Sorrow is a sacred tiling. 

He would not approach a sufferer rudely and drag 
him into notice, whether smarting under the sting of 
sin, or under the rod of God, in some providential be- 
reavement, because experience had taught him that 
alike, in both cases 5 the stricken sufferer seeks conceal- 
ment, and wants but one Physician and one Nurse. 

This is true of cultivated and fine minds, both in 
respect to their sins and sorrows. But it does not hold 
so certainly of the coarser sort, of uncultivated and 
gross spirits. Hawaiians, especially, love so well to 
appear in public, that they are pleased even to be al- 
lowed to tell their sins and expose themselves ; perhaps 
glad sometimes of an occasion to be haled before the 
church that they may make a show. 

And they like so well to talk with their religious 
teacher, and to be talked to, that they will even thank 
him, and manifest great complacency when he has been 
giving them a proper dressing for their sins. 

Mr. Alexander, of Lahainaluna, had been one day 
administering a moral bastinado to a man for his wick- 
edness. When he had done, " Alolia" said the culprit 



HAWAIIAN INSENSIBILITY TO SHAME. 271 

very complacently, " Pomaikai an, ua Jcamailio kaua" 
— Love to you ; I am happy, we two Time had a talk. 
And then lie walked off, pocketing his reproof without 
any sign of malice or displeasure. 

When Hawaiians talk in meetings, or among them- 
selves, like Armado in the play, they are apt to draw 
out the thread of their verbosity finer than the staple of 
their argument. In words they are never wanting, and 
almost any Hawaiian can spin a yarn to any length, 
whether to his Maker or his fellow-men, however pinched 
he may be for the matter of thought. 

Their religious teachers have to conform to their way 
in this particular ; so that they, too, sometimes weave a 
very large piece of stuff out of a mere pinch or handful 
of the raw material of thought. But such attenuated 
fabrics hardly wear better, or bear more using, than the 
native cloth. Perhaps there is about the same differ- 
ence between right good sermons in English, and quite 
common ones in Hawaiian, as between a piece of good 
American domestics, and an Hawaiian kapa. 

Natives now clothe their nakedness quite decently, 
both in kapas and cloth, wherever foreigners are ; and 
it were a good sign if they were as careful, at such places, 
to cover up their moral turpitude, and as much ashamed 
to have it disclosed. But the truth is, when found out, 
they too often manifest very little or no shame. The 
blush of virtue, the genuine feeling so well described 
in the old Boman word jpudor — Quidam rubor nativus 
et incalescentia genuina — you seldom see. 

They will often hold their heads as high after being 



272 LIFE W THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



exposed in gross sins as ever before. Such cases, and 
the fall every now and then of persons who have had 
much care bestowed on them, and for whom high hopes 
have been fondly cherished, must make the heart of a 
faithful missionary very sad. He has need often to say 
with the Psalmist, My soul^ wait thou only upon God : 
my expectation is from him. 

One of the deacons at Waialua was convicted not 
long ago of having promised certain individuals to get 
them into the church for a consideration of money. 
The deacon was to tell them beforehand what to say in 
answer to the examining questions of the pastor. 

This hookamani, as it is called, or deceitfulness of 
Hawaiians, stumbles and distresses some of the pastors 
more than is meet. To me it seems nothing more than 
should be naturally expected, nor will it, we think, be 
very wonderful . if sin should continue to embarrass 
missionaries, and unexpected developments of wicked- 
ness to give them pain, till the world's end, or the times 
of millennium ! "Whoever thinks otherwise, or imagines, 
at home or abroad, that there is any people or any situ- 
ation without stumbling-blocks, or any royal waj of 
converting the world, is reckoning without his host. In. 
one shape or another, he will find everywhere the " Pea- 
hen." 

The present resident missionaries at Waialua, of 1850, 
are Rev. Messrs. Emerson and Gulick, with their wives. 
The number of church members in regular standing is 
six hundred and eighteen. Whole number admitted 
from the beginning, on profession of faith in Christ, 



HAWAIIAN MANUAL LABOR SCHOOL. 273 

seven hundred and seventy-three. The contributions 
there, for benevolent purposes, in the two years prior to 
May, 1848, were nine hundred and two dollars, of which 
five hundred and fifty-two dollars were in cash. In the 
nine common schools of the district there are ten teach- 
ers, and three hundred scholars. 

A few years ago Mr. Locke : had charge of a manual 
labor school at "Waialua of twenty-one boys, which he 
was conducting with the business tact and energy for 
which he was distinguished, and with efficient aid ren- 
dered by a "prudent wife." The pupils had raised 
their food, and cultivated seven acres of sugar-cane. 
They ground the crops on the premises, and boiled 
the juice into syrup, the sale of which more than 
supported th£ school. 

It was yet an experiment in a nascent state, but at 
the time of its suspension it had cost the Board nothing, 
and had a balance of several hundred dollars in its 
favor. The industry and working habits of the lads, 
under skilful supervision, were becoming effective, and 
their proficiency in useful knowledge considerable, 
through oral instruction given them while at work, and 
two hours daily study. 

It was fairly under way, and giving promise of great 
usefulness, just as the providence of Gocl, in the death 
of Mr. Locke, broke it up. By one stroke of disease, 
the vigorous wife and mother was taken away in the 
midst of her days and usefulness. By another, the 
robust husband and father, the youngest of the Mission, 
was suddenly cut down a year after, only a few days 

12* 



274 LIFE IJST THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

before lie was going to embark for America with bis 
three little daughters. 

The orphans are providentially cared for and adopted 
in the family of Mr. Locke's missionary associate, Rev. 
A. B. Smith, now returned and resettled in the ministry 
in the United States. 

After nearly encompassing the island of Oahu, I have 
returned to the Metropolis by way of Ewa,.the station 
of Rev. Mr. Bishop. It is not far from mid-way be- 
tween Waialua and Honolulu, twelve miles from the 
one, and eighteen from the other. Besides his church, 
and those at Kaneohe and Waialua, there are two others 
without a resident pastor, at llauula and Waianae ;* the 
one having one hundred and eighty members, and the 
other two hundred and seventy-one ; most of whom 
were set off from the parent churches at Waialua and 
Ewa. 

The church at the latter place, by the minutes of 
1848, has in regular standing one thousand five hun- 
dred and fifty-eight members. The whole number re- 
ceived on examination is one thousand nine hundred 
and four, of whom one thousand five hundred and twelve 
have been dismissed to other churches, one hundred and 



* Stephen Waimalu was ordained, Sept. 25th, 1850, pastor of the 
church and people of Waianae. In giving him a call to settle among 
them as their pastor, they pledged themselves to raise annually for his 
support $150. Waimalu is the third native who has been ordained to 
preach the Gospel at these Islands within ten months. 



VIEWS OF THE MISSION IN REGARD TO PROPERTY. 275 

twenty-nine have died, and two hundred and fifteen 
remain excommunicated. One thousand dollars were 
contributed for benevolent purposes in the two years 
prior to 1848. 

For several years before the present experiment of 
independencv bv the Hawaiian churches was under 
way, the station at Ewa was virtually supported by the 
avails of the mission herd turned to butter-making, 
under the management of Mrs. Bishop. 

At their General Meeting in 1843, the Mission re- 
solved, "That although we consider the salary allowed 
us by the Board a bona fide salary, still, in our charac- 
ter as missionaries, we are a peculiar people, having 
wholly consecrated ourselves to the Lord for the spread 
of the Gospel in the earth ; and however it may be 
proper for other men to engage in speculations, and ac- 
cumulate property, we cannot consistently with our call- 
ing engage in business for the purpose of private gain. 

" We therefore deem it inexpedient that members of 
our body should possess private herds, and resolve that 
the mission herds be continued, and that those who are 
destitute be furnished with a reasonable number of 
cattle out of the herds or the funds of the mission ; and 
that all the cattle, horses, and carts, held by us, be 
regarded as the property of the American Board, and 
that the herds be not allowed to increase beyond what 
is needed for the comfort of the mission." 

In May, 1848, we find the sense of the Mission at 
General Meeting, expressed thus : " That we consider 
the salary allowed us by the Board, is to be used by us 



276 LIFE IN THE SAJSTDWICH ISLANDS. 

according to our own discretion ; accountable only to 
God, our own conscience, and an enlightened public 
sentiment ; and that all rules of the Mission which may 
be inconsistent with this principle, be rescinded." 

Mr. Bishop, the pastor of Ewa, was one of the first 
reinforcement, along with Mr. Richards, in 1823. It 
affords one sincere pleasure to see the two oldest mis- 
sionaries* now on the ground giving evidence, in their 
vigorous health and due proportions, of having lived 
happily and spent well in their good work. After 
having reared families, founded churches, endured op- 
position, and borne the burden and heat of the day, 
they are still the most hearty and hale-looking men of 
the mission. May God keep them in like prosperous 
estate for yet many years ! 

As the Senate and people of Rome used to decree 
concerning the men who hati done their country service, 
ut meruissent bene de Republic^ that they had deserved 
well of the Republic, so may it be declared with like 
truth of these men and their co-workers, who have con- 
tinued faithful, that they have deserved well of the 
American churches, in whose behalf they willingly 
went on foreign service, when it was a very different 
undertaking from what it is now. 

Mr. Bishop has things to tell of early heathenism, and 
of the habits of foreigners in those days, to make both 
the ears of those who hear thereof to tingle. He was 
one of the deputation that went round Hawaii with Mr. 

* Messrs. Bishop and Thurston. 



FACTS DERIVED FROM THE CENSUS. 277 

Ellis, in 1824, and his means of becoming "acquainted 
with the traits and abominations of heathenism, and 
self-made heathen from Christian lands, have been equal 
to any man's. 

It is all the more painful, therefore, to hear him avow 
the opinion that the licentiousness of young people out 
of the church is as great now as it ever was, and that 
early depravity, more than any thing else, is depopu- 
lating the nation, by prematurely wasting its productive 
powers. Out of the whole population of this island of 
Oahu, twenty-one thousand three hundred and sixty- 
three, there are only four thousand nine hundred and 
thirty-one persons under fifteen years of age. There are 
only four hundred and twenty-eight families that have 
three or more children, and there is not one child on an 
average to a family throughout the island. 

In what light the Mission generally regard it, may be 
seen by the report of a committee on moral reform, as 
follows : That in their opinion the present time calls for 
very special and efficient measures for the suppression 
of licentiousness* among this people, and especially 



* A very pertinent sermon was preached at the Bethel, in Honolulu, 
on the evening of the last day of 1843, by the missionary, Rev. Mr. 
Armstrong. It was on the duty of foreigners to the Hawaiian nation ; 
the text, Jer. xix. 1 : And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused 
you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it ; for in 
the peace thereof shall ye have peace. It was published by request in 
" The Friend," and it were well to have it hung up in the shop and 
office of every man that goes to live at the Sandwich Islands. Among 
other excellent sentiments and duties aptly enforced, he urges it as 
obligatory on all residents and visitors to oppose vice, and do all they 



278 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

among the 'youth, and they would recommend : 1. That 
the pastors of the several churches take special pains 
to instruct the parents belonging to their respective 
churches and congregations upon this subject, and urge 
them to provide separate apartments for the different 



can to deliver the nation from it, and especially intemperance, licentious- 
ness, and gambling. On the middle one of this triad of vices, he speaks 
forcibly after this wise : 

" Would you measure the evils which have come upon this people 
from this quarter ? Look abroad over the length and breadth of the 
land, and inquire after the multitudes who once inhabited villages now 
deserted — where are they ? Why do you meet so few children in the 
streets ? and why are so many diseased, and sink into premature graves ? 
After long observation and intimate acquaintance with the natives, I 
am of opinion that the diseases consequent upon the vice of which I 
now speak, have contributed more than all other causes put together 
to depopulate these fair Islands, and produce the miseries which the in- 
habitants now suffer. And what it concerns us particularly to consider 
is, that these diseases, with all their deadly effects, were introduced here 
by the licentiousness of men from Christian lands ; and for the untold evils 
which have resulted from them to this unsuspecting people, such men 
are responsible." 

In this opinion the author has the concurrence of all the missionaries, 
and of every careful inquirer into the causes of the nation's decay, and 
it is with propriety that he argues at the close — 

" If our reasoning in this discourse be correct, what a solemn account 
will they have to render at the bar of God, who have taken a course 
directly contrary to that which God requires ! I refer to men who 
have come to these shores from Christian lands, and done evil instead 
of good ; men whose general course of life has been to sink the natives 
deeper in degradation and misery ; to encourage them in their vices, 
and teach them vices they never knew before, and make heathenism 
ten-fold more heathenish. For all these things will not God call them 
into judgment ? Are those dark deeds of past years all forgotten ? The 
avenger of blood in Israel did not more resolutely and swiftly pursue 
the man-slayer, than evil pursues such men. If they are not overtaken 
in this life, they will be in the next." 



THE VICE OF LICENTIOUSNESS. 279 

sexes in their families, and watch over the children with 
more than common solicitude in reference to this crying 
sin of the land ; that pastors also use all feasible means 
to render the institution of marriage honorable and 
popular among the people. 

2. That the teachers of our seminaries and schools 
form societies among their scholars similar to the plan 
of " Juvenile Temperance Societies," and make vigor- 
ous effort to render the sin of licentiousness, in all its 
forms, odious and unpopular. 3. That a pledge be 
adopted which shall be alike in all the Islands, and that 
the signers of this pledge be furnished with some badge 
of their membership. 

The Hawaiian government does not do so much to 
suppress the vice of licentiousness at the present time, 
nor is it so strong to keep good morals by law, as under 
the energetic administrations of Kaahumanu, at Hono- 
lulu, and of Hoapili at Lahaina. With more of liberty, 
the maxim is now in vogue by importation, that a man's 
house and premises are his castle, and that a constable 
has no right to enter them without a warrant. But 
then, on the least suspicion of evil in progress, officers 
would venture anywhere unresisted, and hale offenders 
to justice ; and so vigilant were they, that vice had to 
skulk, and was driven out of many a hiding-place. 

Once in the time of shipping, Hoapili sent all the 
women of Lahaina off to the other side of the mountain, 
and forbade their reappearing on the side where the ships 
were, under the penalty of imprisonment. Govern- 
ment now is not so despotic, and the Hawaiians of 1850 



280 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



would not, probably, tolerate a measure that a mere 
word would have executed in 1824. 

"With written laws, and more of civil liberty and re- 
ligion, there is less of personal restraint, and more free- 
dom on the part of the governed, to practise wicked 
works with them that work iniquity. Houses of infamy 
are winked at and allowed at Honolulu, on the plea 
that they have become a necessary evil just as in all 
other countries, and the arm of government, in which 
both law and religion have vested the authority to sup- 
press vice, bears the sword in vain as to this species of 
immorality, provided only it be not caught opfenly. 

This ought not to be, either here or in any other 
State where there are good laws relative to lewdness. 
For it is not one of those things of which Milton says, 
" The law must needs be frivolous which goes to restrain 
things uncertainly, and yet equally, working to good 
and evil ; and were I the chooser, a dram of well-doing 
should be preferred before many times as much the 
forcible hindrance of evil-doing : For God surely es- 
teemeth the growth and perfection of one virtuous per- 
son, more than the restraint of ten vicious." But it is 
a palpable and positive evil, unmixed with good. It is 
evil only continually. And they, in any community, 
who, having the administration of law in their hands, 
do not execute it, but suffer houses that are the way to 
hell, going down to the chambers of death, to entertain 
the harlot and the young man void of understanding, 
they are responsible for the wreck of morals, and the 
ruin of souls there made. It is they who will have to 



THE VICE OF LICENTIOUSNESS. 281 

answer for the many wounded, yea, the strong men slain 
there, and those guests in the depths of hell ! 

The plea of virtue and humanity in respect to what 
is called a " necessary evil" like this,- is, that the preva- 
lence of an acknowledged vice, and the consequent 
lucrativeness of pandering to it in seaport towns, are 
no good reason for letting off or lightly punishing one 
found guilty of it. If a crime were of such a nature 
that nobody would ever be tempted to repeat it, that 
circumstance might fairly be urged in bar of any severe 
or exemplary punishment therefor; but to. hold the 
proneness of depraved humanity to any vice an excuse 
for those, who deliberately devote their lives to its ex- 
tension and facilitation, making it a source of affluence, 
as many do in cities, and living in luxury upon its 
filthy profits; or to argue gravely that brothels are a 
necessary consequence of the growth of cities, and can- 
not therefore be suppressed, this is a perversion of 
equity and good policy little short of monstrous. 

Such reasoning would subvert all morality and virtue 
whatever, and would excuse any crime, let it be but 
common, fashionable, and well fortified. Tea, 'twould 
" sugar o'er the devil himself," and all his devices. 

We commend to honorable magistrates at Honolulu 
and elsewhere the reasonings of the Duke in the moral 
play called Measure for Measure : 

We have strict statutes, and most biting laws, 
Which for these fourteen years we have let sleep ; 
Even, like an overgrown lion in a cave, 
That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers, 



282 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch, 

Only to stick it in their children's sight 

For terror, not for use ; in time the rod 

Becomes more mocked than feared : So our decrees, 

Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead, 

And liberty plucks justice by the nose ; 

The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart 

Goes all decorum. 

Correction and instruction must both work, 

Ere this rude beast will profit. 



HEALTH INHALED FROM THE OCEAN. 283 



CHAPTER XIII. 

RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF A QUARTER CENTURY IN THE HEART OF 

THE PACIFIC. 

God be with thee, gladsome Ocean ! 

How gladly greet I thee once more — 
Ships and waves, and ceaseless motion, 

And men rejoicing on thy shore ! 
O ye hopes, that stir within me, 

Health comes with you from above ! 
God is with me, God is in me ! 

I cannot die, if life be love. 

S. T. Coleridge. 

We join ship and weigh anchor — Life and the world seen from below and from aloft— 
Differences in the view made by differences in the position and persona] estate of the 
beholder — Light from eternity colored by the stained glass of the mind— Hope for 
the convalescent — Holding a telescope to the past — The great landmarks — Astonish- 
ing statistics of progress— Consecutive review of civilization and Christianity in the 
Heart of the Pacific — Detail of results and fruits, economic, literary, and religious — 
Work to be done projected — True relation and uses of the Sandwich Islands to 
America — Necessary leaning of the one upon the other for years to come — Disastrous 
effects to be apprehended if the prop should be withdrawn — The true policy of the 
Christian Church in the missionary enterprise — Purposes of Providence in the Island 
World— Chain of events — Outlook upon the future— Probable type of society— Trans- 
planted Puritanism — Strict Sabbath -keeping — Anecdote of the governor of Oahu — 
Facts illustrative of national habits— First law the Decalogue — A change too great to 
be credited— To whom and what the people ascribe it— Unbounded confidence re- 
posed in their religious teachers— First experiments by the chiefs — Fruits of the 
trial — Unparalleled instance of a moral ascendency — Illustrative anecdote of the pres- 
ent king— Traducers silenced and put to shame — Position of dignity and eminence- 
How attained and the ends to be answered by it — Relations of the Hawaiian Islands 
to China, California, Mexico, and South America— Vista of futurity opened— Con- 
jectures ventured— Ground of their fulfilment — Falsehoods met— Shafts of calumny 
repelled — Counter testimony — Historians noticed — Volume concluded. 

He who has had much experience of suffering and 
sorrow, who has walked thoughtfully a while in the 
valley of humiliation and adversity, after treading with 



284 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

eager hope and ambition the heights of prosperity, or 
the broad table-land of ordinary success, has learned 
how differently human life and the world look, from 
the contrasted points of elevation and depression. 

The difference is not greater between a wide mid- 
summer landscape, viewed from some commanding 
eminence, stretching away on one side into the distant 
mellow haze of noon-tide, and on the other half hidden, 
but its beauty not marred, by interposing drifts of va- 
por ; and a part of that landscape seen close at hand 
from some exposed nook in the same, where the clouds 
are dropping a drizzling rain, where distance, that lent 
to the view its enchantment, has passed into plain re- 
ality, and things appear barren and bare as they are, 
under all the circumstances of discomfort and disadvan- 
tage that invest the place of the beholder. 

There are few thinking men who have lived long, 
that are so happy as not to know what a change is 
made in the aspect of things outward, by changing 
spirits, feelings, health, and moods of mind. There are 
few who have not sojourned a while both in the lights 
and shades of human life. Invisibilia non decipiunt / 
but the things of time and sense, plans and prospects 
of life, the aspects and colors of the world, all the 
dear objects of human pursuit, continually change and 
delude. 

Even the best of men, whose faith in eternal realities 
is constant, whose hope is steadfast in God, who have 
learned to put under feet the lying vanities of time, and 
to walk by a light from eternity, whose eye is cast up- 



ASSIMILATING POWER OF THE SOUL. 285 

ward and onward, and their habitual aim is to please 
God — even they find the hues of feeling tinging the 
objects of faith, much more giving color to all earthly 
prospects, like light falling through stained glass ; and 
those hues often changing with variations of bodily 
health and outward circumstances. 

" The soul hath power, through God's mysterious plan, 
To mould anew and to assimilate 
The outward incidents that wait on man, 
And make them like his hidden, inward state. 
If there's a storm within, then all things round 
The inward storm to clouds and darkness changes ; 
But inward light makes outward light abound, 
And o'er external things in beauty ranges. 
If but the soul be right, submissive, pure, 
It stamps whate'er takes place with peaee and bliss ; 
If fierce, revengeful, and unjust, 'tis sure 
From outward things to draw unhappiness." 

I call to 'mind those remarkable lines of Shelley, 
worthy of a place with some of the best in'Shakspeare 
or Milton, for the extraordinary combination of delicacy 
and vastness in this imagination : 

Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, 
Stains the white radiance of eternity. 

The difference between my own feelings while leaving 
Honolulu now, in improved health and spirits, and 
those with which I approached it more than a year ago, 
a weary, sea-tossed invalid, is greater than can be told. 
Depressed and anxious, I was then saying — 

Ah ! what avails all other earthly good ! 
How tasteless whatsoever can be given, 
When health and drooping spirits go amiss ! 



286 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

God be praised, from whose blessing it comes, that 
now heart, and hope, and brighter prospects all hanging 
upon that pregnant old Saxon word health, give a new 
face to every thing. Brightening the eye, and investing 
with its cheerful green even things external, it makes 
those frowning old craters and barren hill-sides in the 
vicinity of Honolulu, fairly look verdant, as I gaze on 
them for the last time, while our anchor is weighing, 
and recall the propitious providences and friends I have 
there found. 

The gentle readers who may perchance have followed 
me with pleasure in these wanderings through the 
Heart of the Pacific, will now take a retrospective 
glance at facts, through the telescope I hold to them in 
this chapter, in order that we may see what has been 
done, and is now doing for the improvement of the 
Sandwich Island kingdom, and to consider what re- 
mains to be done in order to complete the work of 
Christianizing and civilizing the Hawaiian race. 

We have spent some time at all of the nineteen mis- 
sionary stations but one where there are resident mis- 
sionaries, except on the island of Kauai. "We have 
surveyed missionary and native life under various as- 
pects, and have become somewhat acquainted with the 
modes and means of operation upon the native mind, 
and their results ; and with the trials and difficulties 
which the missionary has to contend with. 

We have mingled with the people in the house and 
by the way, in the field and the school, at their work 
and their play, in the meeting for religious inquiry and 






STATISTICAL REVIEW OF THE MISSION. 287 

at the public sanctuary. We have seen by observation 
what they now are, and we have heard from others 
what they once were. And in instituting our final 
comparison between the Heart of the Pacific as it was 
and is, or between times now and times that were, when 
the first missionaries landed at Kailua, we will take the 
state of progress found at the lapse of just one quarter 
of a century, as indicated by a careful survey and com- 
parison of statistics derived on the spot. 

In the first place, there labored at the Sandwich Isl- 
ands from 1820 to 1844, at. different times, sixty-one 
male and sixty-seven female missionaries, who per- 
formed in all ten hundred and eighty-eight years of 
missionary service. By these there were expended 
$608,865 in their outfit, support, and missionary work. 
After twenty-five years from the first settling of mission- 
aries among a race of the very lowest savages, there were 
to be seen erected forty permanent dwelling-houses, two 
printing-offices and binderies, with which were con- 
nected four printing-presses ; four commodious semi- 
nary and school buildings, all which, together with 
large and valuable lands attached to them, were the 
property of the American Board of Commissioners for 
Foreign Missions. 

Besides these results of Christian industry and perse- 
verance, permanent stone Meeting-houses were found 
erected at almost every station, by the united skill and 
resources of missionary and people, giving and labor- 
ing voluntarily; and about three hundred and seventy- 
five school-houses. The Hawaiian tongue had been 



288 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

mastered, we might almost say created, and reduced to 
writing, and one half the adult population taught to 
read. There had been established four hundred and 
three public schools, in which seventeen thousand four 
hundred and forty children and youth were being in- 
structed. 

The entire Bible had been translated from the origi- 
nal tongues, and there had been printed fifty-two thou- 
sand copies of the New Testament, and twenty thou- 
sand of the Old, besides several editions of one and ten 
thousand copies of fragmentary portions of the Scrip- 
tures, before the entire translation was completed. Up- 
wards of seventy other different works, large and small, 
had been compiled and issued from the press, and the 
total number of pages printed at the missionary presses 
up to 1844, were twenty-two million sixty-one thousand 
seven hundred and fifty. 

There had been organized twenty-five independent 
native churches, and there had been received to them, 
on examination, thirty-one thousand four hundred and 
nine persons, of whom there were then living in regular 
standing twenty-two thousand six hundred and fifty- 
two, being more than one-fifth of the entire population 
of the Islands. 

Besides these educational results that can be con- 
densed into statistics, it should be added as a part of 
their education as a people, that the institutions of the 
Sabbath and of Christian marriage had been firmly es- 
tablished ; government had been rendered compara- 
tively just and stable ; a good wTitten constitution and 









CONDENSED RESULTS OF EDUCATIONAL SERVICES. 289 

laws had been enacted ; life and property were ren- 
dered secure ; the country's industry and resources 
were beginning to be developed. The Hawaiian na- 
tion's independence had been acknowledged by other 
nations, and it was admitted into the fraternity of 
Christian States. The commerce of the Islands, that is, 
the value of its commercial exchanges, or bills nego- 
tiated there for the supply of ships, had grown from 
little or nothing to two hundred thousand dollars, while 
the yearly net revenue of the kingdom had reached to 
seventy thousand dollars, and the annual consumption 
of foreign goods was one hundred and seventy-five 
thousand dollars. 

For the educational force of the nation there were 
found employed at the lapse of the first quarter of a 
century, as religious teachers of the Hawaiian people, 
or in other missionary service among them, six unmar- 
ried and forty married missionaries, having families 
to the number of one hundred and twenty children. 
There were five hundred and forty-eight native school- 
teachers, themselves first taught by the missionary 
educators. There were four boarding-schools or semi- 
naries, having two hundred and seventy-six pupils. 
There were two families formerly in the service of the 
Mission changed to that of the government, but devo- 
ted to the improvement of the Hawaiian race. 

What then remained to be done before the Sandwich 

Islands could cease to be missionary ground, and what 

still remains, in order to complete the education of the 

Hawaiians, is, more thoroughly to instruct and Chris- 

13 



290 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



tianize the common people ; to train up an educated 
native ministry which the people shall support ; to re- 
form the national habits of living ; to inculcate upon 
the sexes modesty and chastity ; to efface the dreadful 
characters of pollution and death, which heathenism has 
been burning in for ages upon the Hawaiian constitu- 
tion ; to introduce more extensively the improvements 
and arts of civilization ; to develop the country's agri- 
cultural resources, and to foster habits and institute 
new ways of industry. 

In order to accomplish all this, there are needed both 
religious teachers, physicians, artisans, mechanics, and 
farmers, to lighten the load and do the undone work of 
worn and weary pastors ; to man the institutions of 
learning, and to afford suitable medical aid to the peo- 
ple, and to the missionary stations remote from each 
other, and to teach the natives all the arts of peace. 

If any man think that where so much has been done 
little remains to do, in the process of national instruc- 
tion and elevation, and when he reads that within the 
last two years the different Hawaiian churches have 
contributed in cash nine thousand three hundred dol- 
lars for building and repairing their churches, support- 
ing preaching and schools, and for other benevolent 
purposes — if he infer that, therefore, the great Amer- 
ican Education Society can soon drop their Hawaiian 
pupils, we have only to say that a greater mistake 
could hardly be entertained. 

That we may ere long leave the pastors to be sup- 
ported, after they get there, in great part by the peo- 



America's duty towards hawaii. 291 

pie, is undoubtedly true. But America must continue 
to supply the men and their outfits, and lend also a 
helping hand to educational institutions there for at 
least twenty years longer, and the leading minds in the 
education of the nation must be from abroad. "We do 
not say that if the American Church should now with- 
draw its aid, and send to the Heart of the Pacific no 
more missionaries, that the light of the Gospel would 
go out along with the lamps of life in the present minis- 
ters, and the people all go back to heathenism, or over 
to the Roman Beast. 

Such a result would be impossible ; for truth has 
made too deep an impression, and taken too strong a 
hold, to be so soon effaced or uprooted. Spiritual life 
would still linger here and there ; and though the 
leaven of the Gospel might in many cases turn sour 
and become rank Romanism, yet the salt of Divine 
truth would have been too widely diffused to let society 
change in the mass, either into the rottenness of Rome,, 
or the Dead Sea of paganism. 

Had missionaries there done nothing (like Schwartz 
in India) but preach the Gospel, this might be. But 
they have wisely translated and printed the Scriptures, 
and founded seminaries and schools ; and the people 
would know too much to be befooled into baptized 
Romish heathenism, or led back blindfold into that 
sottish form of it which they forsook. They would 
probably soon fall into practical, lying infidelity, say- 
ing to them, what they like, Let us eat and drink, for 
to-morrow we die. 



292 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

There would be just enough Christians among them 
to keep up the form of godliness without its power, 
and they would retain enough of outward religion to 
keep them from being feared like barbarians, by for- 
eigners, while they would practise all uncleanness with 
greediness, and foreigners would join with them in 
digging the nation's grave with their lusts. 

The fact that the Gospel has been fairly offered to a 
nation of more than one hundred thousand souls within 
much less than the period of one generation ; that mul- 
titudes have embraced it with eagerness ; that many 
have died in the faith of Jesus ; that many live, the 
exemplary disciples of Christ, to praise him for having 
ever put it into the hearts of American Christians to 
send them the Gospel ; and that a nation of besotted, 
letterless savages has been reformed, by its living 
educators, into an orderly nation of readers — all this, so 
far from allowing American philanthropy in the least 
to relax its efforts, is, as it w T ere, for nothing else in the 
arrangements of Divine Providence, but to give the 
Church a standing proof, a visible demonstration, of 
what w T ould follow from a proportionate outlay of Chris- 
tian educational agencies upon every barbarous nation 
on the face of the earth. When it can be said that the 
Protestant school-master is abroad everywhere, as at 
the Sandwich Islands ; when the teacher, the Christian 
minister, the editor, and the author — those four lead- 
ers in modern civilization — are planted together among 
all the tribes and families of man, as they now are 
side by side in the Heart of the Pacific, the educa- 



PURPOSES OF PROVIDENCE IN THE PACIFIC. 293 

tion of the world for its golden age will have fairly 
begun. 

The solid, social and religious progress of these 
heaven-blest Isles of the Pacific is every day becoming 
more apparent and decided ; and soon will shine out 
clearly the part they are to bear in the Ohristianization 
of the great realms that border on the Pacific upon 
either shore, in the track of whose golden commerce 
they directly lie. Beyond all doubt, it is for some 
great end in Providence that they have been so remark- 
ably Christianized, and time will duly develop all the 
links in the Providential chain of events, that shall 
yoke this best American missionary experiment with 
the triumphal chariot of the King of saints. 

The Heart of the Pacific shall be one of its noblest 
trophies, as the conquering car of Emmanuel traverses 
our globe, in that dear and not distant period when the 
great voice from heaven is heard, saying, Lo, the tab- 
ernacle of God is among- men : the kingdoms of this 
world are become the kingdoms of our lord, and of 
his Christ ; and he shall reign forever and ever. 

It is natural to remark here upon Sandwich Island 
life and religion, how the teachings and example of 
I missionary instructors descended from the Puritans, 
and colonizing like them with their families, for a re- 
ligious purpose, in the howling wilderness of heathen- 
ism, are bringing to pass a state of society that shall 
prove, we trust, in due time, whatever becomes of the 
native race, a reprint of Puritanism. There is the 
more reason to hope for this at the Hawaiian Islands, 



294 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

if the guns of Admiral Tromelin and other French 
commanders in the Pacific do only instruct all the in- 
habitants so effectively into the nature of Popery, that 
the influence of the twenty-five Romish priests there 
shall be neutralized, whose interests the fallen King of 
the French (Louis Philippe) instructed M. Dillon and 
the commanders of the French frigates to look after, 
and whose fidelity in so doing, at the cannon's mouth, 
Louis Napoleon has rewarded. 

True missionary Protestant religion, as it appears in 
the home education of the family, as it is developed in 
the children of missionaries, of whom a remarkable pro- 
portion* have become Christians at the Sandwich Islands, 



* Should the lives of the children of modern missionaries be all writ- 
ten, and compared with the sons and daughters of other Christians, we 
are persuaded that the preponderance of virtue, and piety, and success 
in life would be found largely in favor of the former. As prosperous or 
as happy as the child of a missionary, may yet become a proverb. The 
children of the Sandwich Islandmission, being now upward of one hun- 
dred and fifty, have thus far been remarkably favored by Abraham's 
God. None of them, so far as can be learned, after much inquiry, have 
turned out poorly. Many of them adorn the Christian Church. Several 
of the sons have already become themselves foreign missionaries ; others 
are in the process of training. And of the daughters arrived at adult 
age, there are already valued teachers and wives of ministers, and some 
delightful exhibitions of youthful piety, that promise much for time to 
come. Missionary stock will be as honorable to spring from in future 
times as that of the Puritan is now. May scions worthy of their sires 
be constantly rising in a long line of future posterity ! 

Of the whole number of missionary children living at the period when 
a calculation was made, about twenty years from the first organization 
of the Sandwich Island mission, eighty-eight were boys, seventy-two 
girls. Total, one hundred and sixty : whole number of parents, eighty- 
five ; of families, forty-one ; so that in about two-thirds of a generation 



HAWAIIAN REGARD TO THE SABBATH. 295 

as it is engrafted upon the natives, as it pervades their 
laws, as it bears upon their morals and upon the ob- 
servance of the Sabbath, is more like strict old Pu- 
ritanism than any other national exemplification of re- 
ligion, which the world at present knows. 

The outward keeping of the Sabbath is complained 
of by foreigners throughout the Islands, as puritanically 
strict, and it is undeniably much more so than in Eng- 
land or America at the present time. It is called the 
La Tabu, or the prohibited sacred day. No food is 
cooked on that day, it being all prepared on the Satm> 
day previous, no fires are kindled, no canoes are pad- 
dled. They neither fish nor till the land, and if they 
are on a journey, they uniformly stop over the Sabbath. 
I remember to have been at a missionary station when 
the church in full assembly, and not moved to it im- 
mediately by their pastor, adopted this resolution: 
" That where the Sabbath finds us on a journey, there 
we will stop and keep the holy day." 

Commander Wilkes, of the United States Exploring 
Squadron, found considerable inconvenience in his as- 
cent of the great mountain of Mauna Loa, the highest 
volcanic dome in the Pacific, from the natives' un- 
I willingness to travel or work upon the Sabbath. This 
is owing in part to the fact that when the chiefs, in 
the process of instruction by their religious educ'ators, 

the increase has been one hundred and seventy-five per cent. At the 
same ratio of increase the descendants of these missionaries in one hun- 
dred years would amount to 59,535. 






296 ' LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

began to feel the necessity of having some written laws, 
and asked the missionaries very naturally what they 
should be, they gave them a copy of the Decalogue, then 
recently translated. This the chiefs said was maikai, 
i. e. good, and thus the Ten Commandments became 
the law of the land ; and they are in force to this day, 
along with other written laws ; so that a man is fined 
for unnecessary travel or work on the Sabbath. 

The present rulers of the land, as well as the com- 
mon people, know and acknowledge that it is to their 
missionary teachers, and the law of their God, that they 
owe every thing. The confidence they repose in them 
is, therefore, unbounded, and they sometimes evince a 
gratitude and love that are truly affecting. 

From the outset of the missionary enterprise, the 
chiefs watched the missionaries with a scrutinizing eye, 
and agreed to let them stay only for a stipulated time ? 
having their fears awakened by the insinuations and 
libels of malicious foreigners. The result of the trial 
was perfectly satisfactory. They became thoroughly 
convinced that the missionaries were their true friends, 
having no end but their good; the confidence which 
they then learned to repose in them has never yet been 
shaken. 

Among the common people, too, there are not a few 
who would at any time put their own lives in jeopardy, 
in order to defend their religious teachers. This has 
been practically put to the proof in several instances, 
when the safety of missionaries has been endangered 
by the brutality and malice of licentious foreigners, 






ANECDOTE OF THE HAWAIIAN KING. 297 

balked in their hopes of being able to give such full 
swing to passion as they once could, before the moral 
influence of missionaries had become so great upon 
chiefs and people. 

The present king, Kamehameha HI., was called upon 
one day a few years ago, by a lawless and rough whaling 
captain, a lewd man of the baser sort, much oftener 
met with then than now. He made no concealment of 
his dislike to the missionaries, and well knowing the 
king's former fondness for wine and libertinism, he 
urged him to cut loose from the restraints of the mis- 
sionaries, and allow himself and people the same indul- 
gences as formerly. 

" Stop, (said the king,) did not your shadow fall on 
me as you came in there at my open door ?" " Perhaps 
it did, and what of that ?" " What, but if it had not 
been for the missionaries, you, or any one else whose 
shadow should thus fall on the king,* would very likely 
be a dead man the next hour." 

This significant and unexpected turn put the stopper 
so tightly to the foreign captain's anti-missionary ven- 
om, that he had no more fault to find in that presence 
with the king's religious teachers. 

He chose this method of expressing his approbation 
of the missionaries, and his confidence in them, well 
aware of the common imputation of their meddling 
in his politics, an imputation which was never true 



* Alluding to one of the ancient tabus in force before the establish- 
ment of Christianity. 

13* 



298 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

in any other sense than is both honorable and meet 
for both. Very happily neither the King, nor his 
friends the missionaries, see any reason why the latter 
should avoid being implicated, by advice and recom- 
mendation, with government measures that are .wise 
and good. 

The present dignified and Christian position among 
the nations, of the Sandwich Island King and people, 
has been obtained under missionary guidance and as- 
cendency. It is a position in a sense prophetic, as well 
as preparatory to the mission, yet to be fulfilled by them 
in the grand evolutions of Providence along the line of 
human redemption. 

The unprecedentedly rapid and thorough evangeliza- 
tion of these Islands is not an event, which is to stand 
alone in the history of human progress, and of the Gos- 
pel of Christ. It has relations to Japan, to China, to 
Northeastern Asia, to California, to Mexico, and South 
America, that are yet to be unfolded, perhaps to the 
astonishment of the world. Through them may the 
prophecy yet be fulfilled in reference to Asia — God 

SHALL ENLARGE JAPHETH, AND HE SHALL DWELL IN THE 
TENTS OF SHEM. 

This at least we- may rationally conjecture, that it is 
for some great and wise end, which may soon appear, 
that the Heart of the Pacific has been so wonderfully 
prepared by Divine Providence and Grace. As an ad- 
mitted voluntary member of the American Confederacy, 
it may soon become the great missionary printing depot 
for Eastern Asia, Japan, and its archipelago of islands, 



THE MISSIONARY'S POST OF HONOR. 299 

whence the word of God and the living missionaiy 
teacher shall make their grand entry into those wide 
realms of paganism, by a line of trans-Pacific American 
Steamers. 

These lone islands of the Pacific, all unknown as they 
were to the whole civilized world, until the era of the 
American Revolution, may soon become such a centre 
of light, and civilization, and moral power to the vast 
regions bordering upon the Pacific, as the British Isles 
have been to the countries bordering upon the Atlantic. 

If the men who have been instrumental in establish- 
ing Christianity there, do but labor on contentedly with 
all their might, we believe it will be found ere long 
that they and their native churches are having a mis- 
sion to fulfil, in the work of bringing the pagan world 
to Christ, second to that of no other church in Christen- 
dom. The time may be near at hand, when it will be 
a greater honor and privilege to have preached the 
Gospel faithfully at the Sandwich Islands, and that, too, 
in the despised vernacular kanaka maole, than to have 
filled ambitiously the best Anglo-Saxon pulpit in Eng- 
land or America. 

"We say, then, with a slight accommodation to the 
noble island-band of devoted missionaries who have 
been laying the foundations in the Heart of the North 
Pacific for many generations, as it was said by Milton, 
of the Puritan hero, 

Great things, Islands, we expect of you ! 
Firm, faithful men of God, who through a cloud 
Not of war only, but detractions rude, 
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, 



300 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

To peace and truth your glorious way have ploughed, 

And on the ground of pagan temples proud 

Have reared God's trophies, and his work pursued ! 

* * * Yet much remains 
To conquer still ; peace hath her victories 
No less renowned than war : new foes arise, 
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains : 
Help us to save free conscience from the paw 
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw. 

In concluding this volume, I cannot but express the 
just sense of indignation, which an honest man should 
feel, at the meanness of those persons who will belie the 
labors of Christian missionaries, on the very field of 
their operations, — a field which mercantile men and 
officers of government are able to dwell in with safety, 
only because the patient missionary has been there be- 
fore them, and, through God's blessing, changed in 
great part the character and manners of so recently de- 
praved savages.* 



* The following is the disinterested testimony of a late U. S. Consul 
at Honolulu, the Hon. Joel Turrill, formerly a member of Congress 
from the State 1 of New York: "For several years," he says, "before 
leaving the United States, I had been disinclined to favor the efforts 
that were making to send missionaries abroad, believing that such ef- 
forts otherwise directed would be productive of much more good ; but 
during my residence in these Islands I have been an attentive observer 
of the effects produced by those efforts on the Hawaiian race, and I am 
free to confess that my feelings upon this subject have undergone a 
material change. I find here as missionaries, individuals who, so far as 
my observations have extended, are worthy of their high calling ; and the 
result of their labors, so apparent in the vast improvement in the moral 
and physical condition of its people, forces the conviction on my mind, 
that they have devoted themselves to their arduous duties with a zeal 
and singleness of purpose worthy of the great work in which they are 



FUTUKE MISSIONARY ENTHUSIASM. 301 

Every effort to traduce their characters and work, or 
the native churches they have been instrumental of 
gathering, should be met at once with an irresistible 
array of opposing evidence and conviction. It were 
right for the face of Christendom to gather blackness, 
at such malicious attempts to weaken the faith of the 
Church in the conduct or results of the glorious mis- 
sionary enterprise — an enterprise which is yet to attract 
to itself more true nobility and enthusiasm, than have 
ever been carried into any enterprise undertaken under 
the sun. The missionary enthusiasm, which until now 
has been confined to a few heroic spirits, shall yet per- 
vade the ranks of the Christian Church, disarm opposi- 
tion, and inspire all hearts. 

The very spirit of the world is tired 

Of its dwn taunting question, asked so long, 

" Where is the promise of your Lord's approach ?" 

The infidel has shot his bolts away, 

Till, his exhausted quiver yielding none, 

He gleans the blunted shafts that have recoiled, 

And aims them at the shield of Truth again. 

But it is too late in the serious drama of the world's 
evangelization, for the blunted shafts of slander to re- 
tard its course. The testimony of unprejudiced men 
like the English Rear-admiral Thomas, Sir George 
Simpson,"* Commander Wilkes and other officers of 



engaged. I do not believe that another instance can be found, where, 
with the same amount of means, so much good has been done to any 
people in so limited a period." 
* See note B. 






302 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

the United States Exploring Squadron, saying nothing 
of the concurrent reports of a host of Christian travel- 
lers, is all on file before the world ; and in the chancery 
of public opinion it will outweigh as many anonymous 
sheets of calumny, as would bridge the Pacific from 
Panama to Oahu. 

If any reader be in quest of authentic Hawaiian 
annals, he will find his curiosity well gratified in the 
perusal of the late very full history, by Rev. Hiram 
Bingham, Hartford ; or that by Mr. Jarves, issued in 
Boston, 184:2; or a history by Eev. Sheldon Dibble, 
printed at the Lahainaluna mission press, Sandwich 
Islands. "While they are each replete with information 
of substantial interest to the general reader, the last 
work is .to the Christian perhaps the most valuable of 
the three. 

We regard them all as well prepared seed-beds, from 
which the yet formless garden of Hawaiian history will 
largely draw. If in this volume there has been con- 
tributed one worthy plant, to be set out by the future 
historian in that fair garden; and if it has helped its 
readers to a correct view of the Heart of the North 
Pacific, as it was and is, the end of its author is ful- 
filled, and on it he inscribes 

XfiflVw Ecu ExxXritfia. 



APPENDIX. 



THE HEAKT OF THE PACIFIC. 305 



APPENDIX. 






"We give below a commercial view of the Heart of 
the Pacific, as contained in authentic statistics of Ex- 
ports and Imports at the Sandwich Islands, for the year 
1850, a tabular view of their educational and religious 
progress ; also a documentary history of the late contro- 
versy with the French at the Hawaiian Islands ; and a 
paper from the London Athenaeum, on the comparative 
history and fortunes of the conquering race, that is so 
rapidly colonizing and becoming dominant upon the 
coasts and throughout the Isles of the Pacific, no less 
than of the Atlantic. 

Imports for the year 1850, from the following countries: 

California 8305,913.28 

United States . 283,037.49 

Great Britain 63,987.69 

British Colonies 114,782.11 

China ..' 109,124.19 

Chili. 58,097.84 

Manilla 33,187.84 

Tahiti -. 19,288.29 

Vancouver's Island 15,942.59 

France 7,633.48 

Columbia River, Sitka, Bremen, Kamtschatka, Callao, Bonin 

Isles 24,063.90 

$1,035,058.70 



306 



LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 







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THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 307 



Domestic Exports from Honolulu and Zahainafor the year 1850. 

Honolulu and Kauai. 

Sugar, lbs. 597,831 

Molasses, galls. 34,900 

Syrup, « 9,000 

Coffee,., lbs. 194,073 

Salt, bbls. 5,750 

Lime, " 100 

Beef, " 10 

Hides, lbs. 20,241 

Tallow, " 3,703 

Goatskins, skins 24,983 

Irish Potatoes, bbls. 5,331 

Sweet " " 4,178 

Onions, . "' 252 

Yams, . " 144 

Arrow-root, lbs. 6,956 

Hay, tons 28-J- 

Pickles, bbls. 90-J 

Coral, blocks 1,628 

Mustard-seed, ! lbs. 1,023 

Cattle 50, Horses 2, Mules 1, Sheep 10, Goats 10, Swine 179, Fowls 49 
doz., Turkeys 19 doz., Eggs 2,010 doz., Brooms 410 doz., Pumpkins 
4,678, Melons 950, Cocoanuts 2,100, Cocoanut Door-mats 119, Wood 4 
cords, Mat-bags 500, Oranges 22,000, Charcoal 69 bags. 
Limes, Lime Juice, Peppers, Bananas, Poi, Butter, Rope, Furniture, and 
Sashes, $603.33 

Total value as per Manifests, $139,007.79 

Lahaina. 

Sugar, lbs. 152,407 

Molasses, galls. 18,955 

Syrup, " 66,577 

Coffee, lbs. 14,355 

Salt, sacks 1,912 

Lime, bbls. 80 

Irish Potatoes, " 46,626 

Sweet, " " 5,453 

Onions, " 1,606 

Yams, " 20 

Arrow-root, : lbs. 2,676 

Pickles, bbls. 627 

Coral, blocks 1,428 



308 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Sheep and Goats 182, Swine 444, Fowls 86£ doz., Eggs 504 doz., 
Pumpkins 62,016, Cocoanuts 22,450, Oranges 117,500, Melons 4,610, 
Pine-apples 14,300, Cabbages 1,600, Sweetmeats 212 galls., Lime- 
juice 304 galls., Beans 64 bbls., Corn 5 bbls., Butter 157 lbs., Yinegar 
168 galls., Wood 61 cords, Lumber 21,012 feet. 

Total value as per Manifests, from Lahaina, $241,314.84 

" " " Honolulu .. 139,00119 

Value of Domestic Produce exported and fur- 
nished to ships at the three ports on the isl- 
and of Hawaii, (estimated) 20,000.00 

Domestic supplies furnished to 342 merchant 

vessels at Honolulu. Average $200 each 68,400.00 

Domestic supplies furnished to 106 whale-ships 

(inside) at Honolulu. Average $250 each.... 26,500.00 

Domestic supplies furnished to 13 ships of war 
and surveying vessels at Honolulu. Average 
$500 each 6,500.09 

Domestic supplies furnished to 112 whale-ships 

at Lahaina. Average $220 each 24,640.00 

Domestic supplies furnished to 127 merchant 

ships at Lahaina. Average $80 each 10,160,00 

Total value of domestic exports and supplies 

furnished at Honolulu and Lahaina, for the 

year 1850 $536,522.63 

Memorandum of Spirituous Liquors which paid five dollars per gallon 
duty at the Custom-house in Honolulu, for consumption in the kingdom, 
during the years 1847, 1848, 1849, and 1850. And also the amount of 
each kind consumed during the year 1850. 

1847 3,271 gallons. 1849 5,717 gallons. 

1848 3,443 « 1850 8,252 " 

1850. 

Brandy, 6,484-| gallons. 

Gin, l,159i 

Samshoo, (China,) 112 

Absinthe, 74-J 

Rum, 3374 

Scotch Whisky, 84J 

8,252 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 309 

Gross receipts at Custom-houses of Oahu, Maui, and Kauai, for 1850. 

Honolulu. 

Import duties paid on Goods and on Spirits and 

Wines actually consumed, $91,953.11 

Transit duties, 443.42 

Harbor dues, , 12,644.54 

Stamps, 2,579.50 

Fines and Forfeitures, 877.46 

Interest, 323.50 

Storage, 3,245.15 



$112,066,68 



Harbor Master. 

Shipping and discharging Seamen, 2,711.00 

Stamps, 1,413.00 



$116,190.68 



Lahaina. 

Import duties, 2,323.48 

Transit duties, 39.92 

Harbor dues, 1,299.60 

Stamps, 1,276.00 

Shipping Seamen, 264.15 

$5,203.15 
"Waimea, Kealakeakua, and Hilo. 

Stamps and Harbor dues, 112.90 

$5,316.05 
Add amount from Honolulu, 116,190.68 



Total Receipts, $121,506.73 

Memorandum of Imports and Exports of Houses, House Frames, and 
Lumber of various descriptions, at Honolulu, during the years 1848, 
1849, and 1850. 

Imports. 

1848. 1849. 1850. 

Boards, Plank, Joist, <fec, 809,038ft. 237,703 2,180,448 

Large Timber, 145,550 

Oak Plank, 8,230 16,449 

Clapboards, 5,000 25,250 112,393 

Pickets 9,500 57,830 

Latns, 44,500 155 1,687 

Palings and Battens, 23,331 



310 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



Shingles, 

Door and window frames, blinds, 

and sashes. Valued, 

House frames, 

Houses, (complete, or nearly so,) 
Total value as per Invoices, 



Boards, Plank, Joist, &c, None 

Clapboards, 

Laths, 

Shingles, 

Door Frames and Sashes. Valued, 

House frames, 

Bowling Alleys, complete, 

Houses, 

Total value as per out'd Manifests, 

Condition of the Revenue of the Hawaiian Kingdom, for the year ending 

Zlst of March, 1851. 

From cash on hand last year .. $46,191.18 

The Bureau of Foreign Imposts 118,901.38 

Internal .Commerce 22,5 14.1 5 

Internal Taxes 52,455.26 

Fees and Perquisites 15,314.12 

Coasting Trade and Fisheries 4,269.27 

Government Realizations 56,495.22 

Fines and Penalties 14,404.25 



1848. 


1849. 


1850. 


543,500 


673 


2,081,450 




$296.63 


$821.90 

111, No. 

169 


3,856.48 


$1,603.63 


$101,115.19 


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$330,546.03 

Table of Disbursements. 

For the King and Privy Council $19,966.16 

" Department of the Interior 140,030.52 

" " Foreign Relations 4,130.64 

Finance 15,080.08 

" " Public Instruction 28,825.01 

Law 10,106.84 

For miscellaneous expenses 10,106.84 

For amount disbursed on bills payable, less than has accrued 

on bills receivable 2,126.42 



$250,101.56 
Balance $19,838.41 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 



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LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



Vessels of War and Government Surveying Vessels entered at Honolulu, 1850. 


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Macao, China, 

Plymouth, England, 

Mazatlan, 

Port Clarence, 

Hong Kong, 

S. Francisco via Hilo 

San Francisco, 

Ochotsk, 


CO 

E3 


O (M O tJH CO N O t)< -^ t^ 
i— 1 CO CO CO rH CO CO 


S3 

o 


5r! of 5-T of 

CD -JS <D ,£ 

^^H^pqpqopqa202pqo20PQ 


.2 


U. S. Am. 
Gt. Britain, 

France, 
Gt. Britain, 

IT. S. Am. 

France, 
Russia, 


s 
a 

o 
O 


McArthur, 

Benjamin Boyd, 

Henry Kellett, 

Oldham, 

Rich. Collinson, C. B. 

Jurien de la Gravier, 

McClure, 

Rundle, 

Henry Kellett, C.B. 

Thomas S. Page, 

Petigrew, 

Cosnier, 

Cousmin, 


£ 
ft 


Ewing, 

Wanderer, 

Herald, 

Swift, 

Enterprise, 

Bayonnaise, 

Investigator, 

Cockatrice, 

Herald, 

Dolphin, 

Falmouth, 

Serieuse, 

Baikaal, 


O S3 


Jan. 15, 
Feb. 26, 
May 6, 
June 6, 

" 24, 

" 29, 
July 1, 

" 3 
Oct. 16, 

" 23, 
Nov. 10, 
Dec. 13, 

" 25, 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 313 

A comparative view of the business of the Hawaiian 
Islands in the years 1849 and 1850, may be obtained 
from the following estimates and items, as found in the 
Hawaiian Government Paper of February 8th, 1851, 
published at Honolulu. 

Gross receipts at the Custom House, Honolulu, 1849 $79,802.75 

1850 116,190.68 

Increase in 1850.... 36,387.93 

Gross receipts at the Custom House. Lahaina, 1849 3,330.10 

1850 5,203.15 

Increase in 1850 1,872.45 

Gross receipts at Hawaii and Kauai, 1849 97.87 

" " 1850 112.90 

Increase in 1850 , 15.03 

Domestic exports from Honolulu and Kauai, 1849 89,743.74 

1850 139,007.79 

Increase in 1850 49,264.05 

Domestic exports from Lahaina, (estimated,) 1 849 14,000.00 

« « 1850 241,314.84 

Increase in 1850 227,314,84 

Gross value of imports for 1849 729,739.44 

« « 1850 1,053,058.70 

Increase in 1850 323,319.26 

Net consumption for 1849 622,637.37 

« 1850. 1,006,528.98 

Increase for 1850 383,891.61 

Value of Imports from different countries. 

1849. 1850. 

United States.. $239,246.42 $283,037.49 

California 131,505.89 305,913.28 

Great Britain 44,578.11 63,987.69 

British Colonies 52,821.59 114,782.11 

China 95,787.27 109,124.19 

Chili 87,356.05 58,097.84 

France 23,455.78 7,633.48 

Tahiti 19,340.27 19,288.29 

Columbia River, (Vancouver's Island).. . 12,672.38 15,942.59 

Hamburg : 9,723.58 none. 

Miscellaneous 13,252.10 24,063.90 



314 LIFE m THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



The following are the principal items of domestic export for the 

years 1849 and 1850. The tables for 1849 do not give the exports 

from Lahaina in a separate list, as is the case for the year 1850. As 

few vessels loaded at that port, during 1849, direct for California, 

only 18 merchant vessels are reported as having arrived there; while 

in 1850, 127 arrived, a large proportion of which took in cargoes, or 

parts of cargoes, for California. 

1840. 1850. 

Sugar, lbs 658,820 150,238 

Molasses, gallons 41,235 53,855 

Syrup, gallons none 15,577 

Coffee, lbs 28,231 208,428 

Salt, barrels 2,866 6,000 

Lime, barrels 906 180 

Beef, barrels 158 10 

Hides, lbs 2,512 20,241 

Tallow, lbs 17,403 3,703 

Goat-skins 31,488 24,983 

Irish potatoes, barrels 858 51,957 

Sweet potatoes, barrels 306 9,631 

Onions, barrels about 200 1,858 

Yams, barrels none 164 

Pumpkins about 1,000 66,694 

Cocoanuts none .. 23,550 

Oranges about 10,000 ...... 139,500 

Melons about 1,000 5,560 

Pineapples none 14,300 

Fowls none 1,626 

Turkeys 500 228 

Swine none 623 

Arrow-root, lbs none 9,632 

Eggs, dozen not stated 2,514 

These are the most important items of export, and it will be seen 
that the great increase over the previous year has been in what may 
properly be called the staples of the Islands— sugar, molasses, syrup, salt, 
Irish and sweet potatoes. Vegetables of less importance and fruits 
have greatly increased, and arrow-root has again taken its place among 
the exports from the Islands ; and of these articles the production can 
be almost unlimited. Of syrup none was reported in 1849, and this is 
an article to which some of the plantations are now directing their 
whole attention, and which is more profitable than sugar. 

Both the increase of the receipts at the Custom-house, and the ex- 
traordinary increase of exports, especially from Maui, are gratifying 
indications of advance in resources and wealth, and they are calculated 
to add a new stimulant to the coffee-growers and sugar-planters of 






THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 315 

the Islands. During the first half of the year, the demand for coffee 
and sugar was so great, that had the quantity on hand been millions 
of pounds, it would have found a ready sale, at prices highly remu- 
nerative. And such, we apprehend, will continue to be the case in 
future years. At the present moment prices are greatly depressed, 
and the market at San Francisco is overstocked with these articles ; 
but this very fact will withhold shipments from other countries, and the 
present stock will be reduced, and command a paying price. When 
that moment arrives, and it is sure to come, these Islands are the nearest 
point from whence the demand can be supplied, and, with the speed of 
steam navigation, Hawaiian staples can be transported thither at the 
very moment they will pay best. Oregon is fast filling up, and California 
will, without a doubt, steadily increase in population for many years to 
come, though not so rapidly as during the past two years. Consump- 
tion of the staple products of the Islands will keep pace with the increase 
of population, and those articles which are peculiar to the tropics will 
always be in demand to the full extent of the "ability to supply. The 
export of vegetables may not increase, or even come^up to that of the 
year 1850; but fruits, coffee, sugar, syrup, and molasses, there is no 
doubt, will be required in a constantly increasing ratio, and will com- 
mand a price that will well remunerate the producers at the Sandwich 
Islands. 

The following comparative view will show how, in another way, the 
products of the Islands are in increasing demand. 

Whole number of vessels that visited the Islands from 1848-50 : — 

1848. 1849. 1850. 

Merchant vessels 90 180 469 

Whalers — 274 237 

Vessels of war, (fee — 13 13 

The supplies furnished to these vessels amounted in 1849 to $81,340. 

in 1850 to 140,000. 

Almost the whole of these supplies were raised from the soil, and 

consequently their value was so much added to the ability of the people 

to purchase the imports of the merchants, and to increase their own 

comfort. 

The increased value of exports and supplies has, however, been more 
than equalled by the increase of imports. From California and the 
British colonies they have more than doubled ; and the aggregate in- 
crease from all countries, for consumption, amounts to $383,891.61. 

Increase of exports and supplies 335,238.89. 

Excess of imports 58,652.72. 

The total value of imports for consumption is... $1,006,528.98. 

The total value of exports and supplies 536,522.63. 

Excess of imports 470,005.35. 



316 



LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



Of this excess a considerable amount has been in sugar-mills, and 
agricultural implements for the cultivation of the soil, admitted duty 
free by government. Another portion was introduced by consuls and 
missions, for consumption and not for sale. How has the balance (say 
$400,000) been paid for ? In part by the direct introduction of capital 
invested in plantations, &c. ; in part by profits derived from shipments 
abroad on island account ; and in a great degree by money put in cir- 
culation by strangers, returned Hawaiians, captains, officers, and crews 
of ships, which do not come into the calculation of " supplies." There 
may be a small debt against the Islands on account of imports, but it 
probably does not exceed the amount of goods still remaining unsold 
in the hands of importers. 

These statistics show progress, and awaken the hope that the Hawaiian 
Islands have entered upon a course of increasing prosperity, depending 
almost wholly upon the development of their agricultural resources. 
To this point the most earnest attention should be given by Govern- 
ment and the people of the Islands. The great desideratum of a ready 
market now exists at their own doors ; and if the demand is not promptly 
met, it will not be because Providence has not furnished all the means 
and appliances for so important an object. 



From the Reports of Keoni Ana, Minister of the Interior, and of Robert 
Crichton Wyllie, Minister of Foreign Relations, we learn that the number 
of foreigners who have taken the oath of allegiance during the year 
1850 is 151, citizens of the following countries : — 



United States 69 

Great Britain 37 

France 4 

Portugal 5 

Germany 5 

Denmark , 2 

Prussia 1 



China 12 

South America 2 

East Indies 5 

West Indies 4 

Poly ne sia 4 

Africa 1 



The amount of goods sold at auction in the Hawaiian Kingdom during 
the same year was $1,060,760.38. 

The amount received for public licenses is $24,145. 

In real estate, the number of royal patents granted during the year 
is 314. 

To aliens 25. To subjects 319. 

By the annexed tables can be seen the number of acres sold on each 
island, and the gross amount of their price. 






THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 317 



Islands. Acres. Amount. 

Oabu 15,161 $19,175.20 

Maui 9,338 17,927.86 

Hawaii 3,196 3,490.68 

Kauai 2,446 2,699.58 

Molokai 1,371 349.00 



Total 31,518 844,352.32 

The avails to the Treasury of the Interior Department, during the 
year 1850, have been $84,350.65. 



We add to the foregoing exhibition of the commerce 
and trade of the Sandwich Islands, a tabular view also of 
educational and religious progress at the Heart of the 
Pacific. 

During the year ending May 1, 1850, 851 members "were received on 
examination into 17 of the churches at these Islands. The number 
admitted on examination to the churches at Kaanapali, Waiane, and 
"Waimea, and on Molokai, is not reported. The largest number added 
to any one church is 369, to the first church in Honolulu. This church 
received, besides, 106 members from other churches. 

19 of the churches report a loss by death of 1277 members; while 18 
of these churches report the baptism of only 295 children. In connec- 
tion with 17 of them, there were 1354 marriages. 

The following list of contributions to purposes of benevolence shows 
the amount given by these churches, and the objects to which it was 
appropriated. The list is not complete, no report having been received 
from five of the churches. 

Kauai. — Waioli, . . Monthly concert, for native preacher at Koloa $15.00 

Monthly concert, for repairs of church 46.50 

For shingling of church 173.50 

Oahu. — Kaneohe, . Objects not stated 500.00 

Waialua, For French Protestant Mission 30.86 

For meeting-houses 293.00 

Honolulu, 2d ch., Monthly concert 108.69 

For support of pastor 320.00 

Honolulu, 1st ch., Salary of pastor 500.00 

Repair of houses for pastor...., 500.00 

To a native preacher. 73.00 

To Mr. Thurston, to repair loss by fire 25.00 
For French Protestant Missions 37.00 



318 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Honolulu, 1 st ch., For American Board $90.00 

For meeting-house in Kau 30.00 

For meeting-house in Kohala 50.00 

Maui. — Zahaina,.. For support of pastor 562.00 

French Protestant Missions 76.00 

American Board 50.00 

For church communion 44.15 

For meeting-house on Lanai 35.00 

For other objects , 120.00 

For seraphina, amount not stated 

MoloJcai, ..For support of pastor 420.00 

For Kohala meeting-house 102.00 

Spread of the Gospel abroad 501.50 

Relief of the poor 40.00 

WailuJcu, . For American Board 426.61 

For French Protestant Missions 41.85 

For repairing meeting-house 602.00 

Hana, For support of pastor 125.00 

Hawaii. — Hilo, . . . For American Tract Society 1 00.00 

For American Board 607.00 

Waimca, . . Contributions, objects not stated 200.00 

Kailua, . . . For support of pastor and native assistant 208.00 

For French Protestant Missions ■ 30.31 

For meeting-house at Kohala 33.62 

JTau, For support of pastor 93.96 

The whole amount is $7,213.14, from about 18,000 recent converts 
from the lowest idolatry. 

The entire amount expended on the Sandwich Islands for educational 
purposes during the year 1850, may be estimated as follows : — 

On the public schools $25,891.96 

On select schools supported by government 1,929.52 

On select schools supported by voluntary efforts... 11,061.00 
Ministers' salary, clerk hire, stationery, &c 4,264.11 

$43,146.59 

Supposing the population on the 1st of January, 1851, to be 85,000, 
which is not far from the truth, the above amount would be 50 cents 
for every individual : or supposing the taxable male population to be 
15,000, it would amount to $2.08 for each man, were the whole amount 
raised by taxation. The average annual cost of each school has been 
$47.68. Average yearly wages of each teacher, $37.99. Average 
yearly cost of each scholar, $1.69. 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 



319 



Tabular View of Schools for 1850, 
Reported by Missionaries. 



STATIONS. 



Hawaii,. < 



Maui, . 



r Hilo and Puna 

Waimea 

Kohala 

Kailua 

Kealakekua 

^Kau 

f Hana 

J Wailuku 

! Lahaina 

I^Kaanapali 

Molokai , 

Laxai 

f Honolulu 1st 

| Honolulu 2d .'. 

•{ Ewa and Waianae 

| Waialua 

LKaneohe 

fWaioli 

-{ Koloa 

^Waimea 

Nhhau 



Oahu, . 



Kauai, . 



Total. 



° m 

a-S 

ft 

48 


02 

s 

o 

02 


i- 
0) 

as 

Qi 


3 
1 


2091 


1207 


860 


21 


841 


400 


285 


21 


1116 


605 


260 


21 


972 


381 


100 


26 


925 


404 


202 


13 


355 


101 


45 


27 


1149 


579 


317 


24 


837 


434 


377 


15 


899 


424 


282 


10 


333 


117 


69 


22 


1016 


610 


273 


7 


184 


162 


104 


23 


1068 


407 


248 


12 


445 


203 


108 


27 


820 


496 


312 


26 


735 


361 


247 


11 


529 


386 


287 


20 


515 


331 


170 


15 


437 


267 


135 


15 


400 


•221 


68 


6 

388 


141 


69 


47 


11,7927655 


4523 ( 



1037 
366 
759 
374 
265 
155 
430 
174 
341 
133 
685 
127 
377 
225 
436 
371 
356 
258 
223 
167 
29 



§■ 

§P 

O 

802 
166 
276 
233 
141 
54 
411 
304 
377 
101 
300 
103 
292 
102 
535 
26b 
380 
179 
175 
93 
14 



60 
"** 

33 

91 
31 

144 
26 
60 
19 
33 
64 
48 
34 

422 
10 

145 
14 
97 

122 

113 



21 



No. of scholars in English, 1850. 



421 



SEMINARIES, &c. 



Royal school 
Lahainaluna . 

Wailuku 

Hilo 

Waioli 



11 
64 
35 
62 

48 



Total 220 



o si 



23 
4 



27 



5 =3 

3*5 j 

«-2 : 



2 
14 

3 
12 
14 



45 



— — = 



W 



02 



14 

8 

7 



29 



320 



LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



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322 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



HONOLULU A COMMERCIAL DEPOT. 

The peculiar advantages of Honolulu, as a depot for the commerce 
of the Northern Pacific, have not received that attention from commer- 
cial men which they deserve, and to which their intrinsic merits entitle 
them. To some of these we will now allude, in the hope that they may 
arrest the attention of those interested in the prosperity of this king- 
dom, and engaged in its rapidly extending commerce. 

In the first place, we have a safe and convenient harbor, into which 
any number of vessels, ever likely to require accommodation, can enter, 
and be perfectly safe from all casualties of wind and tempest. This is 
a point of great importance to be knoAvn, as thereby the rate of insur- 
ance would be reduced, and the anxieties of shippers diminished. Our 
harbor is also of easy access, and vessels are subjected to but little de- 
lay in entering. Whenever delays occur on account of strong winds? 
those winds blow off shore, and ships can safely ride at their anchors, 
outside, until they can come in. But with a small steam-tug to tow 
ships in, no delay whatever need occur. They could be brought in in 
any weather. The southerly gales that bring ships at anchor outside 
upon a lee shore, blow directly in, and vessels can always slip and run 
in, even if they cannot stay to get their anchors. Almost every wreck 
upon our coast, for many years past, has been of ships bound off, and 
which did not wish to come inside. Our harbor, therefore, may be con- 
sidered as safe as any other in the Pacific, and furnishes sufficient ac- 
commodation for a large fleet. At one time during the last shipping 
season, a hundred vessels were counted, and there was room for more. 

Another indispensable requisite, in connection with the commercial 
advantages of Honolulu, is good and sufficient wharfage, where ships of 
the largest class can come alongside and discharge, without the ex- 
pense and delay of lighters. This, we are happy to say, is now being 
provided by the government, and will soon furnish all that will be re- 
quired for many years, even should the business of the port increase in 
a large ratio. The new wharves are being constructed in a firm and 
durable manner, and are run out into from ten to eighteen feet water, 
thus affording vessels of a large class all the advantages they need for 
rapidly discharging their cargoes. When these are completed — which 
they will be in a few weeks — no delay need occur, as has formerly 
been the case, from % want of accommodation at the wharves. 

Secure and convenient storage is another advantage possessed here, 
of great value to the port as a general depot for goods awaiting a 
market. There are several large and commodious warehouses, owned 
by the government and by individuals, of easy access, and convenient 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 32 



Q 



to the -wharves, where a large amount of goods can be safely stored. 
Some of these buildings are fire-proof, and others so nearly so as to 
render them quite safe from the casualties of fire. Should those now 
built be found inadequate to the demand, there is abundant room for 
the erection of more, in the near vicinity of the wharves ; and such 
structures would be multiplied as rapidly as the demand increased. At 
present there is a large amount of storage room unoccupied — sufficient 
for the cargoes of many ships, and at rates far below those of San 
Francisco, or any other port in the Northern Pacific. Goods can also 
be landed and stored at this port at a cheap rate, compared with the 
ports on the coast, where labor is so excessively high. We have this 
fact from a gentleman, now here in commercial pursuits, and who 
is thoroughly versed in the details of expenses of this kind on the 
coast. 

In view of these facts, and with the knowledge that goods can be 
entered here for re-shipment, subject only to a transit duty of one per 
cent., the advantages of this port, as a depot for goods awaiting a mar- 
ket, must appear quite apparent. If the late decision of the Collector 
of San Francisco is carried into execution, we submit to consignees 
there, having cargoes upon their hands, whether it would not be a 
material saving of expense to send their ships here to discharge and 
store their goods, until a favorable moment arrives for effecting sales. 

"We shall, without doubt, have a line of steamers running between 
the Islands and the coast within a few months. By this expeditious 
mode of intercourse goods could be thrown into that market within a 
month or six weeks, and merchants there would always know the state 
of the demand, and the proper time to have them forwarded. 

In addition to the above facilities, vessels can get stone ballast, wood, 
and water, of the very best description, in any quantity, and so conve- 
nient, that casks can be filled in a lighter or ship's boat from the hose, 
as it comes from the iron pipes. This water is perfectly soft, being 
brought from a spring some hundreds of feet above the sea, without 
coming in contact with the ground. 

We are confident in the belief that Honolulu possesses all the advan- 
tages for a large commercial depot for the North Pacific, especially for 
California and Oregon, which will, ere long, be appreciated and em- 
ployed, in preference to Valparaiso or any other port in this ocean ; 
and where assorted cargoes for those points, and for the more northern 
possessions of the Russians, can be made up at the very shortest notice. 
— Polynesian. 



FRENCH DIFFICULTIES AT THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

The principal demands of France were, 1. That a portion of the 
money raised by the government for the support of schools shall be 



324 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

placed in the hands of a few Catholic priests who' reside there. This 
money is now collected and expended by an officer of the government, 
called the Minister of Public Instruction, and schools are thus provided 
for nearly or quite all the children on the Islands. 2. That the price 
of licenses for retailing French brandy shall be regulated by France. 
The object is to take away all power of the government from restrain- 
ing those habits of intoxication among the people, which were once al- 
most universal, but are now very extensively abandoned, and thus make 
an increased sale for brandy. 

It will be recollected that Dillon with his frigate did not succeed in 
enforcing these demands. After failing to persuade the government to 
yield to them, he went on shore with a body of armed troops, paraded 
through the streets of Honolulu, went to the fort, hoisted the French 
flag, sent for the Governor and demanded the surrender of his soldiers. 
The noble Islander, in a calm and dignified manner, replied, " I have no 
soldiers." Dillon's troops then went to work to do what injury they 
could to the public property, by turning over the small out-buildings, 
cutting down trees, and making obscene pictures, and writing obscene 
words on the walls of the fort ; and, after other proceedings of a similar 
character, and destroying property to the amount of $100,000, retired 
on board their vessel. They soon left for California, and, upon their 
own account of their proceeding, the California papers spoke of them 
as pirates ; and their proceedings were undoubtedly nothing better than 
piratical. 

The Grand Nation has now sent out Perrin to reassert their claims ; 
an 1, as the government has no military force, he gave them a limited 
time to save the town from destruction by compliance. In this ex- 
tremity, the government has proposed to Mr. Severance, the American 
Commissioner, as it is understood, to yield the sovereignty of the Isl- 
ands to the United States, and place themselves under the protection 
of the Stars and Stripes. It is also understood that he has accepted 
the offer provisionally, to await the action of our government. The 
Vandalia, one of our ships of war, is there. It is said, that not only Mr. 
Severance and Mr. Allen, our Consul, and the commanding officer of the 
Vandalia, but Gen. Miller, the British Consul, and all the respectable 
foreign residents, justify the position of the Hawaiian government, and 
condemn the proceedings of Perrin. And this brutal exercise of power over 
a defenceless people just emerged from barbarism, is disgracing France in 
the eyes of the civilized world. It is really a dastardly business. 

France has no important interests at the Island. There are scarcely a 
dozen French residents there. The American interests, on the con- 
trary, are of very great and growing importance. Several thousand 
Americans reside on the Islands, many of whom are owners of large 
tracts of land, and are engaged in agriculture. There is always a great 
amount of American shipping in their ports. It often amounts to mil- 



THE HEAKT OF THE PACIFIC. 325 



lions of dollars in value. Eighty ships are no uncommon sight in the 
harbor of Honolulu, mostly of a very large class. The connection with 
Oregon and California is constant, and there is a regular mail between 
Honolulu and the United States. At the present rate of increase, a 
large proportion of the inhabitants will soon be Americans. It is to be 
hoped that our government will protect these interests of our citizens 
against France, and assume a decided tone against any attempts on the 
part of the French government to interfere with the independence of 
the Island, If the Islands must be annexed to this country to protect 
them against French piracy, it will be a righteous annexation. The 
people of Honolulu, both foreign and native, are extremely desirous of 
living under a flag which the French will not dare to insult. 

It is understood that an Agent of the Government of the Sandwich 
Islands is now at Washington, with full power to negotiate important 
changes in the relations between the Islands and the United States. 
He is the bearer of two propositions : one, for the establishment of an 
American Protectorate over the Islands, their government and internal 
organization remaining as now ; the other, for the abdication of the king, 
the complete resignation of the authority into the hands of the people 
under suitable republican forms, and the definite annexation of the 
Islands to this Republic. These propositions are submitted to our 
Government for its choice and acceptance, with an earnest request from 
the king and all his ministers that one or the other of them may be 
promptly embraced and acted upon. This step, we have reason to 
beiieve, has not been taken without deliberation and perfect conviction 
that it is both necessary and timely. 

To take the Islands under the protection of the United States would 
be of little, if any, advantage to either of the two parties. Our protec- 
tion could hardly be rendered efficacious in a country where our right 
to exercise it might be denied, while it might entangle us in unpleasant 
difficulties with other nations. 

In our view, the only question to be entertained is that of annexation. 
As a territory of the United States, the Islands would be exempt from 
foreign interference, and the authority of our flag and the force of our 
laws would not be disputed. To the inhabitants and future settlers, 
annexation would be a blessing. It would insure tranquillity, order, 
and a more active development of the rich natural resources of the 
country. Of its present white population, by far the greater and pre- 
dominantly influential part are Americans, who long once more to live 
under the stars and stripes. Its civilization and its commerce are 
American ; its laws and government are, already, to a great extent, mod- 
elled upon ours. And as the trade of the Pacific is developed, the 
value of the Islands will increase, not only to ourselves, but to other 
nation s. — A merican newsp aper. 



326 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

The following is a copy of the Eules of Conference 
finally agreed upon between the Commissioner of the 
French Republic and the Minister of Foreign Affairs 
of the Hawaiian Kingdom, at Honolulu, the 10th of 
January, 1851. Appended are the most important 
Diplomatic Notes and Protocols that passed between 
the parties while negotiations were pending, and the 
final Declaration to which they arrived. 

RULES OF DIPLOMATIC CONFERENCES. 

The undersigned Negotiators of the Treaty, concluded on the 26th of 
March, 1846, between France and the Hawaiian Islands, chosen by the 
President of the French Republic and the King of the Sandwich Isl- 
ands, to put an end to the much regretted differences that have super- 
vened between the two countries, and to arrest in their source all 
causes of ulterior difficulties ; after having each — in four dispatches, 
which have recently been exchanged — restored to the political relations 
of the two countries the character of mutual confidence and honorable 
loyalty which they had sought to establish, have agreed to subject 
themselves to the following preliminary articles, in the conduct of the 
Diplomatic Conferences, rendered necessary by the negotiation with 
which they are charged : — 

ARTICLE I. 

With the view of recording the results obtained during the course of 
the negotiations, it is agreed that Protocols of each sitting shall be pre- 
pared, successively, during the discussions, to be read and signed by the 
two Commissioners, at the opening of the following sitting. 

The order of signatures shall be the same as that adopted by the un- 
dersigned, at the .conclusion of the Treaty of 26th March, 1846. 

ARTICLE II. 

For the success of the negotiation itself, and in order that each Com- 
missioner may be able to perform his other important duties, each Con- 
ference shall last only from eleven in the morning to two in the after- 
noon ; to be resumed at the same hour, on such other day as it may 
please the two negotiators to fix, before they separate. 

ARTICLE III. 

The Hawaiian language not being understood by either of the two 
undersigned, it is agreed that, for the drawing up of the Protocols, only, 
the English and French languages shall be used, exclusively. 



THE HEAKT OF THE PACIFIC. 327 



ARTICLE IV. 

The two Commissioners shall only propose to themselves to seek for 
the true interests of their respective nations ; observing all the respect 
due to nations very unequal in force, though perfectly equal in regard 
to sovereignty and independence ; it has been agreed that, with this 
object, the two negotiators shall judge of the facts, in themselves, with 
calm loyalty and impartiality, and that they shall, reciprocally, demand 
nothing which they would not be ready to grant, in turn, in analogous 
circumstances. 

ARTICLE V. 

To secure this desirable result, which is altogether indispensable to 
the dignity and honor of the two States, the two negotiators, in their 
conferences, shall divest themselves of all prejudices and passion, and 
will carry their investigations back to the visit to this Archipelago, 
made in 1837, by Vice-admiral Du Petit Thouars. 

ARTICLE VI. 

The undersigned shall endeavor to guard themselves against every 
source of error, and, so far as their personal influence may permit, to 
dispose their respective governments to renounce every idea, or every 
demand which shall appear to them not sufficiently established. 

ARTICLE VII. 

With the view of preventing all surprise, and for the sake of a politi- 
cal liberty of great propriety, it has been decided that the points, suc- 
cessively agreed upon in the discussion, shall not be definitively obtain- 
ed, till after the whole discussion has been closed. 

ARTICLE VIII. 

To do homage to truth, and record an historical fact, the two negotia- 
tors have solemnly recognized that, in the eyes of the two contracting 
parties, the Treaty of the 26th of March, 1846, has been, hitherto, main- 
tained in its integrity. 

• ARTICLE IX. 

All the documents that may be examined shall be numbered and 
marked by the initials of the two Commissioners. 

ARTICLE x. 

The discussion shall be pursued and terminated in conformity with 
the general principles of the laws of nations, and the diplomatic usages 
of the great powers. 

ARTICLE XI. 

It has also been agreed that if — impossible though it seem to be — 
the government of the French Republic should admit the mediation of 
a third power, for the adjustment of the difficulties confided to the un- 



328 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



dersigned, before the latter have completed their task, the two negotia- 
tors, undersigned, shall each conform to the decision which shall have 
been agreed upon, between France and the mediating Power, in such 
an event. 

ARTICLE XII. 

The result of the negotiations, recorded in the Protocols, shall be em- 
bodied in a Declaration, signed by the two Commissioners in the name 
of their respective governments, in a place which shall be hereafter 
agreed upon : That signature shall be followed by a salute exchanged 
between the shore and the Serieuse : That final Act shall be drawn up 
in French and Hawaiian, with a translation in the English language ; 
and as it shall not be considered in the light of a new Convention, but 
simply an Act interpreting the existing Convention, and designed to in- 
sure its execution, there will be no occasion for ratification on the part 
of any of the governments of the two contracting parties. 

Done in duplicate, in Honolulu, this 10th day of January, 1851. 

R. C. WYLLIE, 

Minister of Foreign Relations. 
Le Commissaire de la Republique Francaise, 

EM. PERRIN. • 

PROTOCOL. 

Saturday, 15th If arch, 1851. 

Mr. "Wyllie alleging reasons of State, asked M. Perrin's permission to 
give him a perusal of the instructions framed in April and September 
1849, for Mr. Jarves and Mr. Judd, during their mission to the govern- 
ments of France, Great Britain, and the United States, and accordingly 
gave a reading of each of these documents. 

M. Perrin, in his turn, read a " verbal note" dated this day, serving 
as a reply to his memorandum on Schools, to the notes and historical 
memorandum latterly addressed by the Minister, Mr. "Wyllie, after 
having denied some of the consequences deduced by M. Perrin, as con- 
trary both to the object of these writings and to his own intentions, 
asked a copy of the note to reply to it, if it was to have any official force 
against the Hawaiian government ; M. Perrin answered that his desire 
was not to delay too much the entering upon the draft of the final note ; 
he did not think it proper at present to leave a copy of that winch he 
had read. 

Mr. Wyllie then communicated to M. Perrin the explanation fur- 
nished in the name of the Hawaiian government, upon all the demands 
of France presented by her special Commissioner. 

R. C. WYLLIE, 

Minister of Foreign Relations. 
Le Commissaire de la Republique Francaise, 
EM. PERRIN. 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 329 



The following are the explanations referred to, and the Demands of 
the French Republic to which they apply, presented by M. Perrin, at 
the conference of 1st February, 1851. 

Demands to which the Government of the French Republic thinks that 
satisfaction ought to be made, before the re-establishment of Diplomatic 
Relations can take place with that of the Hawaiian Islands. 

1. The adoption complete, entire, and loyal, of the Treaty of the 26th 
March, 1846, as it was drafted in the French Text. 

2. The establishment of a duty from 1 to 2 dollars a gallon, of 5 
bottles on spirits, containing less than 55 per cent, of alcohol. 

3. A treatment rigorously equal, granted to the two worships, Catho- 
lic and Protestant. 

The direction of instruction confided to two Superior Committees 
formed in each of the two religions. 

The submission of the Catholic Schools to Catholic Inspectors. 

The proportional division between the two religions of the Tax raised 
by the Hawaiian Government for the support of Schools. 

4. The adoption of the French language, in the relations between 
French Citizens and the Hawaiian Administration. 

5. The withdrawal of the exception imposed upon French whalers, 
importing wines and spirits, and the abrogation of the regulation which 
obliges ships laden with liquors to pay, and support the Custom-house 
guard, put on board to watch over their shipment or discharge. 

Large facilities of deposit, of transit, and of transhipment granted to 
the trade in spirits. 

6. The reimbursement of all the duties received in virtue of the 
disposition, the withdrawal of which is demanded by the paragraph 
above mentioned ; or a proportional indemnity given for the damage 
occasioned to French commerce, by the restriction which has suspended 
its relations. 

7. The reimbursement of the fine of 25 dollars, paid by the French 
ship General Teste, and besides an indemnity of 60 dollars for the time 
during which she was unjustly detained here. 

8. The insertion in the official journal of the Hawaiian Government, of 
the punishment inflicted upon the scholars of the high-school, whose im- 
pious conduct occasioned the complaints of the Abbe Coulon. 

9. The removal of the governor, who caused or allowed to be violated 
on Hawaii, the domicil of the Abbe Marechal, or the order to that gov- 
ernor to make reparation to that missionary, the one or the other de- 
cision to be inserted in the official journal. 

10. The payment to a French citizen, proprietor of the Hotel of 
France, of the damages committed in his house by foreign sailors, against 
whom the Hawaiian Government took no process. 

The Commissioner of the French Republic, 

(Signed,) EM. PERRIJS". ' 

Honolulu, 1st February, 1851. 



330 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



REPLIES BY MR. WYLLIE. 

On behalf of the Hawaiian Government, to the demands of the French, 
presented by M. Perrin, on the 1st February, 1851, to enable him to 
satisfy himself and the French government, upon all points. 

1. The adoption complete, entire, and loyal, of the Treaty of the 26th 
March, 1846, as it was drafted in the French Text, and signed in the 
Hawaiian and French languages, and in all cases before the foreign 
judges who do not understand French, the text of the British Treaty 
declared by M. Guizot, to have been drawn up, in the same terms with 
the French, and so declared by M. Perrin himself at the conference of 
the 26th March, 1846, to be held as a translation of the French Text, 
the correctness of which is not to be disputed. 

2. The Hawaiian Government do not admit that in the duty of $5 
per gallon, on spirits, they have gone beyond the power conveyed to 
them exclusively by France herself in the words used by her in the VI. 
article of the said Treaty ; they have shown that the effect of that duty 
has been beneficial to France, in an eminent degree, while it has been 
injurious to the trade in British and American spirits ; bat they are 
willing to submit the question of a reduction to $2 per gallon to the 
approaching Legislature, as a measure of political economy, and upon 
moral grounds recommended by the Chamber of Commerce. 

3. The King's Government cannot admit the right of any foreign nation 
to dictate to them, or prescribe laws on matters affecting only the re- 
ligious belief and secular education of the King's native subjects. But 
they are willing to receive the demands of M. Perrin, under the 3d 
article, in the light of friendly suggestions for the consideration of the 
Legislature, so far as the already perfect equality of Catholics and 
Protestants, under the Constitution and Laws, of which abundant proof 
has already been given, may leave any thing to be provided for. 

4. Documents presented by French citizens in their own language 
shall be received in all cases where documents in English are received, 
but in cases where the officer whose duty it is to act upon them does 
not understand the French, it shall be the duty of the applicant to fur- 
nish a translation of his document, which, to prevent dispute or error of 
judgment, shall be by him authenticated, under the signature and seal 
of the Consul of France. 

5. The King's Government would gladly withdraw any exception to 
French whalers, if any such existed, but it has been already* shown that 
no such exception ever existed. French whalers are entirely upon the 
same footing in all respects as the whalers of any other foreign nation. 
France cannot claim more, in accordance with the Treaty of 26th March, 
1846, and the King cannot grant more to France, in conformity with his 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 331 

treaties with other powers. The same remark applies to the Custom- 
house regulations respecting the payment of a guard on board, deposit, 
transit, and transhipment of spirits. 

6. Wo reimbursement or indemnity can be given where no wrong has 
been done. To admit the contrary would imply a violation of the 
Treaty, which the King's Government are justified by all concurrent 
opinion, and by the clear and natural wording of the Treaty, in denying. 
France cannot insist that this government should affix upon itself a stain, 
which in its own opinion and that of the world it does not deserve. 

7. The King's Government would annihilate their right to claim of 
foreign ships the observance of their Port Regulations, if they were to 
return the fine of $ 25 imposed on the ship General Teste ; or allow 860 
for a delay in port, for which the captain alone was to blame. All that 
was shown clearly to M. Dillon, in Mr. Wyllie's dispatch Wo. 53, of 25th 
November, 1848, published at page 41 of the published correspondence 
with that gentleman. The King's Government always considered, and 
consider still, that they deserve thanks for having reduced the fine, le- 
gally incurred by the General Teste, from -$500 to $25. The law which 
the captain of the General Teste had violated is quoted at page 44 of 
that correspondence. 

8. All that M. Dillon asked for on the 16th April, 1849, with reference 
to the complaint of the Abbe Coulon, was to be informed what measures 
would be taken to prevent such acts as he had complained of. That 
was all that the Rev. Abbe, who, with a moderation worthy of his cleri- 
cal character, had declined appearing before the native judge, had re- 
quired him to do v Mr. Wyllie courteously received M. Dillon's dispatch, 
and referred the complaint to the King's Minister of Public Instruction, 
as will be seen by referring to Mr. Wyllie's note Wo. 34, of 19th April, 
1849, page 317, of the same correspondence, and that Minister, after ex- 
plaining the case, replied, as will be seen at page 360, that should like 
cases occur in future, on being duly informed it will be his duty to give 
notice to the proper officer, that he might proceed against the offenders 
according to law. It is understood the native judge before whom the 
boys were carried dismissed the case, on the ground of want of proof. 
If the Rev. Abbe had made his complaint to the Minister of Public In- 
struction, either directly or through his bishop, (which would have been 
preferable,) on proof of their delinquency, the boys would have been 
punished severely, under the law, section VI., chapter VI, part IV., 
stcond Act of Kamehameha III. ; and if the judge had neglected his 
duty, he would have been liable to the punishment provided for in the 
law of 31st May, 1841, page 89 of the old laws. The King's Government 
do not encourage sacrilege of any kind ; the law amply provides for its 
punishment, and if the Bishop will instruct his clergy in all such case? 
to prefer a written complaint to the Minister of Public Instruction, it 
will be his duty to see the law rigidly enforced against proved delin- 



332 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

quents. It is not believed that the offence complained of has since been 
repeated anywhere on the Islands. 

9. The facts stated by his Excellency, the Governor of Hawaii, pub- 
lished at page 59 of the official correspondence with Admiral de Trome- 
lin, make it appear that the Abbe Marechal either screened or caused 
to be screened, in his domicil, a fugitive from justice. By referring to 
Mr. Wyllie's dispatch of the 24th August, 1849, published at page 6T 
of the same correspondence, it will be seen that the King's Government 
had no inteliigence of such a complaint till it had been magnified very 
irregularly with a formal international demand. It will not be con- 
tended that on the mere complaint of a Catholic priest to a French 
Consul (in itself a contempt of the magistracy of the country) there 
should be a just cause why the Governor of the largest island of the 
kingdom should be dismissed without a hearing. That would indeed 
be a strange doctrine under the laws of nations, and a singular inter- 
pretation of the 2d article of the Treaty of the 26th March, 1846. Pro- 
cess at law against the Governor, before the King's chief-justice, was 
offered to M. Dillon, and even a free passage to Hawaii in the King's 
yacht, that he might witness the fairness of the proceedings. M. Dillon 
did not accept the offer, but the courts of the country are still open to 
the Rev. Abbe if he wish to prosecute. 

10. The receipt of Victor Chancer el for f 9 3.50, is in the archives 
of the Foreign Office. It rests upon the authority of British officers 
that Victor's original bill for damages was only for $8, (see page 
53 of the same correspondence,) so that the claim of Chancerel was 
paid more than ten times over, on the 30th of August, 1849, a fact with 
many others, which General Lahitte could not possibly have known 
when he placed the ten demands of France in the hands of M. Perrin. 

The King's Government invite the Government of France to adopt 
the same Treaty, mutatis mutandis, as that lately formed with the 
United States, or to consider the present Treaty at an end in 12 months 
from this date, and in the mean while to form a new Treaty free from 
the objections and ambiguities of the old. 

The King's Government consider that France is specially bound to 
remove all the restrictions imposed on the King, in the 3d and 6th ar- 
ticles of the Treaty of 26th March 1846, both because he was deprived 
of his rightful prerogatives of sovereignty by a French officer, under a 
threat of instant war, and because the Government consented to the 
reduction of the duties on wines, on the condition of the removal of 
those restrictions to which M. Dillon repeatedly pledged himself with 
emphatic promises of his best endeavors. 

The King's Government desire a mutual accord between France, 
Great Britain, and the United States, so as to render their treaties 
uniform on these Islands, to provide for a settlement of all disputes 
arising under them by amicable reference, to respect the King's neu 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 333 



trality in all war3 one with another, and to adopt one common rule, in 
regard to the duties and conduct of their political agents, towards the 
King's Administration, so as to relieve it from an oppressive and vexa- 
tious interference, depriving the King's officers of all time to attend to 
the internal interests of the country. If things are to continue as they 
have been, the Government of the country as an independent state is 
an impracticability. 

R. C. WYLLIE. 

Foreign Office, loth March, 1851. 

Protocol of Tuesday, 18th March, 1851. 

The undersigned met at the usual hour ; the Commissioner of the 
French Republic returned the draft of explanations on each of his ten 
demands, which he had received from Mr. Wyllie, and at the same time 
delivered to him a draft of the final note drawn up by him and contain- 
ing the whole of the solutions given to the demands above mentioned. 
After having read that document, Mr. Wyllie declared that he refused 
to admit its tenor, because it exacted of the King what, in his eyes, 
could not be demanded of him, either by right of the laws of nations, 
or in virtue of the existing treaty with France ; adding, however, that 
he would translate the draft as received, and would try its lawfulness 
by comparisons with the text of the Laws of Nations, and would pro- 
duce, in the name of the Hawaiian Government, a commentary on each 
of the articles of the treaty, showing that that Convention had been 
faithfully executed, in every part, to this very day. 

M. Perrin refused to enter upon such a course, asserting that at the 
point to which the negotiation had arrived, such a proposal was inad- 
missible. 

Mr. Wyllie then said that he could not think the desire of M. Perrin 
was to render the Government of the King impracticable, and to pro- 
voke a crisis disastrous to his independence and for the future interests 
of the commerce and shipping of France in the Northern Pacific Ocean. 
He suggested, in consequence, a solution of all the questions, honorable 
in his view for France, acceptable and beneficial to the King. 

M. Perrin declared that he would consider all these projects, in view 
of the graveness of circumstances. 

Mr. Wyllie asked permission to add, on the subject of a suggestion 
contained in the project of M. Perrin, and relative to a national salute 
to be given by the Hawaiian Fort to France, at the moment when the 
French. Consular Flag should be again raised, that M. Dillon had vol- 
untarily hauled down bis flag, in spite of the protest of the Hawaiian 
Government, and that he could notify to M. Perrin, officially, with the 
full authority of the King, as he now did, that the Government of Ka- 
mehameha III. would never accept one dollar of indemnity from France, 
for the damages occasioned, and for the royal yacht taken away, unless 
a clear expression of regret for such injuries, and a salute in honor of the 



334: LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

King- as sovereign, whose authority had been usurped in his own do- 
minions, should first be granted. 

M. Perrin expressed his regret on being so late informed of an opinion 
entirely contrary to the views of the French Government ; he brought 
to mind that often already he had officially and verbally announced 
that the object of liis mission was not to come and give satisfaction to a 
Government, although he came, on the contrary, to demand it with all 
the moderation which became the power of the French Republic, adding 
that that declaration had never provoked the least observation on the 
part of Mr. Wyllie. The Minister then said that that Resolution had 
only recently been taken in Council. 

Mr. Wyllie besides declared that if this point of etiquette, in the 
opinion of M. Perrin, should prevent the re-establishment of diplomatic 
relations with France, she would lose nothing by it ; that her interests 
in this Archipelago would not suffer, because he believed that the King 
would not the less continue to treat the French and their interests on 
the footing of the most favored nation. 

The undersigned adjourned until to-morrow at 11 A. M. 

R. C. WYLLIE, 

Minister of Foreign Relations. 
Le Cornmissaire de la Republique Francaise, 
EM. PERRIN. 

Protocol of Wednesday, 19 th March, 1851. 

The undersigned met at the usual hour. 

After having compared together the two drafts of declaration pro- 
posed by Mr. Wyllie, and that which he himself had brought the day 
before, the Commissioner of the French Republic offered to Mr. Wyllie 
to accept, in the name of France, four of the solutions which the Min- 
ister had indicated in his draft of the 15th instant, reserving to himself 
to ask new instructions from his Government in regard to the solutions 
offered on the other points of lus note of the 1st February last, before 
proceeding further. 

This proposal having been agreed to, the Minister said that he would 
submit the drafts of Declaration to the King in Cabinet, and then in 
Privy Council ; and to allow time for that consultation and deliberation, 
the undersigned agreed to postpone their next meeting until Saturday 
the 22d instant. 

M. Perrin added that in a note to be dated this day he would define 
the character in which he would remain, until his new instructions should 
arrive from France. 

R. C. WYLLIE, 

Minister of Foreign Relations. 
Le Cornmissaire de la Republique Francaise, 

EM. PERRIN. 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 335 

Protocol of Saturday, 22d March, 1851. 

The two negotiators, undersigned, met at mid-day, as had been agreed 
upon. 

Mr. Wyllie presented to M. Perrin a translation in the English lan- 
guage of the Declaration agreed upon, in which the Alternat was clearly 
preserved in favor of the King of the Sandwich Islands. 

M. Perrin remarked that before all he had to sign the French and 
Hawaiian Texts, which were not prepared ; that in these" original docu- 
ments he could not grant the Alternat to the King of the Hawaiian 
Islands, in conformity with the usage of France, Great Britain, and the 
United States ; that from the loth of January he had announced to the 
Minister that it would be only after the adjustment of the difficulties 
actually pending, that he could examine this question of etiquette, re- 
ferring it to Paris, and then conforming to the orders which he should 
receive ; that until then he could only maintain the statu quo ; that this 
measure adopted for the originals ought necessarily to be in their trans- 
lation. Mr. Wyllie having replied that he understood the Alternat as 
allowed to the King both by Great Britain and the United States, and 
that it was generally granted between the great powers, and even the 
middling, M. Perrin answered that he did not consider that the Ha- 
waiian Kingdom had attained either of these two ranks. 

Mr. Wyllie then produced one original of the English treaty of the 
26th March, 1846, in which the signature of the Minister was before that 
of the Consul-general of England. M. Perrin observed that the only 
original published by the Hawaiian Government placed the signature of 
the agent of Great Britain on the same line as that of the Minister. 
To cut this discussion short, the undersigned have agreed from this time 
to follow the precedent of England,, under all the reserves of the rights 
of both Governments. 

It was agreed that the resolution of the King of the Sandwich Isl- 
ands, containing the promise to refer to the decision of the President of 
the French Republic the question of indemnities reclaimed by the 
Hawaiian Government in consequence of the events of the month of 
August, 1849, shall be (subject to the King's pleasure) transmitted in an 
official note, to which the Commissioner of the French Republic will 
reply, accepting that offer, in the name of the Prince President. 

The undersigned, at their separation, agreed to meet again on Tuesday 

next at mid-day. 

R. C. WYLLIE, 

Minister of Foreign Relations. 
Le Commissaire de la Republique Francaise, 

EM. PERRIN. 

Protocol of Tuesday, 25th March, 1851. 
The undersigned negotiators met this day, as had been agreed upon 
at their last conference of the 2 2d instant. 



336 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Before proceeding to the exchange of their respective powers, the 
undersigned employed themselves in comparing the French and English 
texts of the Protocols of the 15th, 18th, 19th, and 22d instant, and 
afterwards affixed thereto their signatures. 

Mr. Wyllie remarked that after having hastily finished translations of 
M. Perrin's dispatch No. 18, of the 2 2d of this month, and of his " verbal 
note" accompanying it, he desired to revise them with the French Com- 
missioner, so as that when rendering an account thereof to the King and 
Council, he might be sure to convey the true meaning of M. Perrin. 
This verification was immediately made. 

Mr. "Wyllie then begged permission of the French Commissioner to 
read to him the notes No. 22, 23, 24, and 25, dated this day, all drafted 
in haste by him, but which it had been impossible for his Secretary to 
copy. 

After reading them, the Minister expressed his strong hope that the 
French Government would consider all the points upon which a solution 
was deferred till after their Commissioner had referred them, as insig- 
nificant compared with those which had been settled ; the Commissioner 
of the French Republic manifested a different opinion, and the two ne- 
gotiators then agreed to give a new proof of their sincere desire to arrive, 
as soon as possible, at the re-establishment of relations between the two 
countries, by continuing to discuss, officially, and in a conciliatory spirit, 
in a series of new conferences, the divers points remaining to be settled, 
but that no new Declaration shall be made, till after the arrival of the 
instructions asked for of the French Government, by their Special Com- 
missioner. 

Mr. Wyllie asked M. Perrin's leave to call his attention to a claim 
which he had completely forgotten, at the moment of making out the 
Schedule of indemnities. 

The undersigned then exchanged their respective powers, signed and 
sealed three originals of the Declaration agreed upon in French and 
Hawaiian, at 5 o'clock P. M., making mutual reserves in regard to the 
right of " Alternate 

The undersigned then adjourned their sitting, sine die. 

R. C. WYLLIE, 

Minister of Foreign Relations. 
Le Commissaire de la Republique Fran raise, 
EM. PERRIN. 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 337 



DECLARATION. 

The President of the Trench Republic, and the King of the Hawaiian 
Islands, animated by an equal desire to terminate the adjustment o 
pending difficulties between the two countries, and to prevent their 
return for the future, by assuring the just and complete execution of 
the convention of the 26th of March, 1846, in regard to the points in 
controversy, through a new official act, destined to interpret it, have 
chosen, for this purpose, the undersigned Commissioner of the French 
Republic, and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the 
signers of the Treaty above mentioned, who, after having exchanged their 
full powers, found in good form, have agreed to the terms of the follow- 
ing declaration : 

1. The Treaty of the 26th of March, 1846, will be faithfully adopted 
and interpreted in the two texts, French and Hawaiian, the only ones 
officially signed. It remains agreed in. all the cases where the foreign 
judges not understanding French have to decide, the texts of the Eng- 
lish treaty, officially declared identical, under reserve of the III. article, 
shall be considered as an exact translation. 

2. Without admitting that by the establishment of a Custom-house 
duty of $5 per gallon upon spirits, the Hawaiian Government have gone 
beyond the exclusive power which France herself had granted to them, 
through the means of the wording of the VI. article of the Treaty above 
mentioned — an assertion, in regard to which, the undersigned French 
Commissioner makes all reserves — and after having proved that the 
effects of that duty have been profitable to France, and hurtful to the 
English and American trade in spirits — the King of the Sandwich Isl- 
ands declares himself disposed to submit the question of the reduction 
of duty to $2.50 cents per gallon, as a maximum, to the legislature, 
which is to assemble next month, as a measure of political economy, 
which the Chamber of Commerce of Honolulu have recommended on 
strong grounds. 

3. The government" of the king cannot recognize, on the part of any 
foreign nation, the right of dictating or prescribing laws to them, on 
matters which affect only the religious belief or secular education of the 
native subjects of the king ; nevertheless, disposed to admit the third 
of the demands presented by M. Perrin, on the 1st of February last, as 
a friendly suggestion, destined for the examination of the legislature 
which is to assemble this year, the Hawaiian Government will place 
these assemblies in a position to decide, if the equality between the 
Catholics and the Protestants, under the protection of the Constitution 
and the Laws, of which numerous proofs have been furnished, do not 
yet require something for its perfect application. 

4. Documents presented by French citizens, in their own language, 

15 



338 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



will be received in all the cases in which documents in the English lan- 
guage are received ; but, in the cases where the employees whose duty- 
it is to make use of these documents do not understand French, it shall 
be incumbent, provisionally, on the party interested, to furnish a trans- 
lation of the document produced, which, to prevent all error and dis- 
cussion, shall be certified by him as true. 
Honolulu, 25th March, 1851. 

R. C. WYLLIE, 

.Minister of Foreign Relations. 
Le Commissaire de la Republique Francaise, 

EM. PERRIN. 



From the foregoing papers it will be seen that the 
controversy of the Hawaiian government with the 
French is in the way of adjustment. " All that is want- 
ing is for France to restore harmony ; for, on behalf of 
the king's government, they have never for one moment 
deviated from their policy of treating France, her citi- 
zens, and all their interests, on the footing of the most 
favored nation. That this wise and unresenting policy 
will be duly appreciated by the French government, is 
not to be doubted. But, to crown all, King Kamehameha 
III., with a magnanimity worthy of a sovereign, refers 
his claims for indemnity for severe losses sustained, 
without requiring the punishment of the authors, to 
the President of France himself; thus proving to the 
world alike his confidence in the justice of his own 
cause, and in the justice of Prince Louis Napoleon 
Bonaparte, in whose hands he places it." 

In his speech at the opening of the Hawaiian Par- 
liament, on the 10th of May, 1851, the king uses the 
following language : " Diplomatic Relations have not 
been fully restored with France, but having, on my 
part, referred certain claims for indemnity to the Presi* 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 339 

dent of the French Republic, I hope that he, meeting 
me in a corresponding spirit, will issue such instruc- 
tions as to put an end to an attitude of hostility towards 
my kingdom, taken by France, which I have ever re- 
.gretted, and have never sought, in any way, to retaliate. 
I am not conscious of any act of my government^ of 
which France has any reason to complain." 

The simple utterance of the above sentence by His 
Majesty, says the Polynesian, felt, as it is, to be the 
simple truth, has more force than a thousand volumes 
of subtle reasoning, in convincing the judgment, and 
in nerving the heart. And the sentiment is not con- 
fined to the breast of His Majesty ; it is entertained by 
every member of his government, and is the universal 
sentiment of the world. Its truth calls forth the sym- 
pathies of all his subjects, and unites the opinions of 
all classes upon his shores. 

It is understood that negotiations are in progress 
with the United States, at Washington, through an 
authorized agent of the Hawaiian kingdom, which 
have for their end either the establishment of an 
American Protectorate at the Sandwich Islands, or 
their annexation to the American Union, in the event 
of the non-establishment of permanent friendly relations 
with France on a satisfactory and independent basis. 
Certain significant events of Providence, and the fact 
that the Hawaiian Islands are already a virtual colony 
of the United States, a missionary offshoot from the 
stock of New England, together with the " manifest 
destiny" view of the extension of American institutions, 






340 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

give a strong probability to what might "otherwise seem 
but a presumption, namely, that the lapse of a few 
years will find the Heart of the Pacific a twin heart 
with the great American Republic, organized under 
the same laws, and beating with the same Anglo-Saxon 
blood that shall animate the united millions of all 
North America between the Atlantic and Pacific. 
The law of progress and of conquest by arts and emi- 
gration is so clearly impressed upon the American 
division of the Anglo-Saxon family, that it is like a 
denial of Providence and Destiny to doubt its great 
and glorious issues, or the triumphs it is yet to achieve 
on the field of social progress and humanity. "We 
quote, as in place here, the following paper on 

THE PROGRESS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE. 

By a fortunate coincidence, the general total of the American census 
taken last year has just been received, and we are enabled, in conjunc- 
tion with the returns made on the 31st of March for this country, to 
measure the absolute progress of the Anglo-Saxon raco in its two grand 
divisions, and to compare the laws of their respective growths in relation 
to each other and to the rest of the world. It is estimated, including 
Ireland and the colonies, that there is a grand total of men speaking the 
same language and manifesting the same general tendencies of civiliza- 
tion, of fifty-six millions, from which is to be deducted the three millions 
of negro slaves in the United States, leaving a remainder of fifty-three 
millions, chiefly of Anglo-Saxon descent, and deeply impregnated with 
its sturdy qualities of heart and brain, as the representative of this 
advancing stock. 

Two centuries ago there were not quite three millions of this race on 
the face of the earth. There are a million more persons of Magyar 
descent, speaking the Magyar language, at the present moment in 
Europe than there were in Europe and America of this conquering and 
colonizing people in the time of Cromwell. ! How vain, then, for men to 
talk of the political necessity for absorbing small races ! Sixty years 
ago, the Anglo-Saxon race did not exceed seventeen millions in Europe 
and America. At that time it was not numerically stronger than the 



THE HEAKT OF THE PACIFIC. 341 

Poles. Thirty years ago it counted only thirty-four millions ; being 
altogether only three millions and a fraction more than-the population 
of France at that time, and considerably less than the Teutonic popula- 
tion of Central Europe. In 1851 it is ahead of every civilized race in 
the world. Of races lying within the zones of civilization, the Sclaves 
alone are more Bumerous, counted by heads ; but comparatively few 
of this plastic and submissive stock have yet escaped from the barbarism 
of the dark ages. In wealth, energy, and cultivation, they are not to be 
compared with the Frank, the Teuton, and the Anglo-Saxon, dumber 
is almost their only element of strength. 

Of all the races which are now striving for the mastery of the world, 
to impress on the future of society and civilization the stamp of its own 
character and genius, to make its law, idiom, religion, manners, govern- 
ment, and opinion prevail, the Anglo-Saxon is now unquestionably the 
most numerous, powerful, and active. The day when it might possibly 
have been crushed, absorbed, or trampled out, like Hungary and Poland, 
by stronger hordes, is gone by forever. That it was possible at one 
time for this people to be subdued by violence, or to fall a prey to the 
slower agonies of decline, there can be little doubt. In 1650 the United 
Provinces seemed more likely to make a grand figure in the world's 
future history than England. Their wealth, activity, and maritime 
power were the most imposing in Europe. They had all the carrying 
trade of the west in their hands. Their language was spoken in every 
port. In the great Orient their empire was fixed and their influence 
paramount. England was then hardly known abroad. Her difficult 
idiom grated on foreign ears, and her stormy coasts repelled the curiosity 
of more cultivated travellers. And if the thought of a day arriving when 
any single European language would be. spoken by millions of persons, 
scattered over the great continents of the earth from New Zealand to 
the Hebrides, and from the Cape of Storms to the Arctic Ocean, occurred 
to any speculative mind, Dutch, not English, would probably have been 
the tongue to which he would have assigned the marvellous mission. 

Yet Holland has fallen nearly as much as the Saxon has risen in 
the scale of nations. Her idiom is now acquired by few. Her merchants 
conduct their correspondence and transact their business in French or in 
English. Even her writers have many of them clothed their genius in a 
foreign garb. On the other hand, our literature and language have 
passed entirely out of this phase of danger. Dutch, like Welsh, Flemish, 
Erse, Basque, and other idioms, is doomed to perish as an intellectual 
medium ; but whatever may be the future changes of the world, the 
tongue of Shakspeare and of Bacon is now too firmly rooted ever to be 
torn awa}'. No longer content with mere preservation, it aims at uni- 
versal mastery. Gradually it is taking possession of all the ports and 
coasts of the world ; isolating all rival idioms, shutting them up from 
intercourse with each other, making itself the channel of every commu- 



342 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



nication. At a hundred points at once it plays the aggressor. It con- 
tends with Spanish on the frontiers of Mexico ; drives French and 
Russian before it in Canada and in the Northern Archipelago ; supersedes 
Dutch at the Cape and Natal ; elbows Greek and Italian at Malta and 
in the Ionian Islands ; usurps the right of Arabic at Suez and Alexandria ; 
maintains itself supreme at Liberia, Hongkong, Jamaica* and St. Helena ; 
fights its way against multitudinous and various dialects in the Rocky 
Mountains, in Central America, on the Gold Coast, in the interior of 
Australia, and among the countless islands in the Eastern Seas. No 
other language is spreading in this way. French and German find 
students among cultivated men ; but English permanently destroys and 
supersedes the idioms with which it comes in contact. 

The relative growth of the two great Anglo-Saxon States is note- 
worthy. In 1801 the population of Great Britain wag 10,942,646; in 
1800 that of the United States was 5,319,762, or not quite half. In 1850 
the population of the United States was two millions and a third more 
than that of Great Britain in 1851 ; at this moment it probably exceeds 
it by three millions. The rate of decennial increase in this country is less 
than 15 per cent., while in America it is about 35 per cent. In the 
great Continental States the rate is considerably lower than in England. 
According to the progress of the last fifty years in France and in America, 
the United States will have the larger population in 1870 ; in 1900 they 
will exceed those of England, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, 
and Switzerland combined. Prudent statesmen should bear these facts 
in mind. Many persons now alive may see the time when America 
will be of more importance to us, socially, commercially, and politically, 
than all Europe put together. Old diplomatic traditions will go for 
little in face of a transatlantic power numbering one hundred millions of 
free and energetic men of our own race and blood. — Athenceum. 



COPY OF THE LATE TREATY BETWEEN THE UNITED 
STATES AND SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

The United States of America and His Majesty the King of the 
Hawaiian Islands, equally animated with the desire of maintaining the 
relations of good understanding which have hitherto so happily subsisted 
between their respective States, and consolidating the commercial inter- 
course between them, have agreed to enter into negotiations for the 
conclusion of a treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation, for 
which purpose they have appointed Plenipotentiaries, that is to say : 

The President of the United States of America, John M. Clayton, 
Secretary of State of the United States ; and His Majesty the King oi 
the Hawaiian Islands, James Jackson Jarves, accredited as his Special 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 343 

Commissioner to the Government of the United States; who, after 
having exchanged their full powers, found in good and due form, have 
concluded and signed the following articles : 

Article 1. — There shall be perpetual peace and amity between the 
United States and the King of the Hawaiian Islands, his heirs, and his 
successors. 

Article 2. — There shall be reciprocal liberty of commerce and navi- 
gation between the United States of America and the Hawaiian Islands. 

No duty of customs or other impost shall be charged upon any goods, 
the produce or manufacture of one country, upon importation from such 
country into the other, other or higher than the duty or impost charged 
upon goods of the same kind, the produce or manufacture of, or imported 
from any other country ; and the United States of America, and His 
Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands do hereby engage, that the 
subjects or citizens of any other State shall not enjoy any favor, privi- 
lege, or immunity whatever, in matters of commerce and navigation, 
which shall not also, at the same time, be extended to the subjects or 
citizens of the other contracting parties gratuitously, if the concession 
in favor of that other State shall have been gratuitous, and in return for 
a compensation, as nearly as possible, of proportionate value and effect, 
to be adjusted by mutual agreement, if the concession shall have been 
conditional. 

Article 3. — All articles, the produce and manufacture of either country 
which can legally be imported into either country from the other, in 
ships of that other country, and thence coming, shall, when so imported, 
be subject to the same duties, and enjoy the same privileges, whether 
imported in ships of the one country, or in ships of the other ; and in 
like manner, all goods which can legally be exported or re-exported 
from either country to the other, in ships of that other country, shall, 
when so exported or re-exported, be subject to the same duties, and be en- 
titled to the same privileges, drawbacks, bounties, and allowances, whether 
exported in ships of the one country or in ships of the other ; and all 
goods and articles, of whatever description, not being of the produce or 
manufacture of the United States, which can be legally imported into 
the Sandwich Islands, shall, when so imported in vessels of the United 
States, pay no other or higher duties, imposts, or charges, than shall be 
payable upon the like goods and articles, when imported in the vessels 
of the most favored foreign nation other than the nation of which the 
said goods and articles are the produce or manufacture. 

Article 4. — No duties of tonnage, harbor, light-houses, pilotage, quar- 
antine, or other similar duties, of whatever nature, or under whatever 
denomination, shall be imposed in either country upon the vessels of the 
other, in respect of voyages between the United States of America and 
the Hawaiian Islands, if laden, or in respect of any voyage, if in ballast, 
which shall not be equally imposed in the like cases on national vessels. 



344 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



Article 5. — It is hereby declared, that the stipulations of the present 
treaty are not to be understood as applying to the navigation and carry- 
ing trade between one port and another situated in the States of either 
contracting party, such navigation and trade being reserved exclusively 
to national vessels. 

Article 6. — Steam-vessels of the United States which may be em- 
ployed by the government of the said States, in the carrying of their, 
public mails across the Pacific Ocean, or from one port in that ocean to 
another, shall have free access to the ports of the Sandwich Islands, 
with the privilege of stopping therein to refit, to refresh, to land pas- 
sengers and their baggage, and for the transaction of any business per- 
taining to the public mail service of the United States, and shall be 
subject in such ports to no duties of tonnage, harbor, light-houses, quar- 
antine,, or other similar duties, of whatever nature or under whatever 
denomination. 

Article 1. — The whale-ships of the United States shall have access 
to the ports of Hilo, Kealakekua, and Hanalei, in the Sandwich Islands, 
for the purposes of refitment and refreshment, as well as to the ports 
of Honolulu and Lahaina, which only are ports of entry for all merchant 
vessels, and in all the above-named ports, they shall be permitted to 
trade or barter their supplies or goods, excepting spirituous liquors, to 
the -amount of two hundred dollars, ad valorem, for each vessel, without 
paying any charge for tonnage or harbor dues of any description, or 
any duties or imposts whatever upon the goods or articles so traded or 
bartered. They shall also be permitted, with the like exemption from 
all charges for tonnage and harbor dues, further to trade or barter, with 
the same exemption as to spirituous liquors, to the additional amount of 
one thousand dollars, ad valorem, for each vessel, paying upon the addi- 
tional goods and articles so traded and bartered, no other or higher 
duties than are payable on like goods and articles, when imported in 
the vessels and by the citizens or subjects of the most favored foreign 
nation. They shall also be permitted to pass from port to port of the 
Sandwich Islands for the purpose of procuring refreshments, but they 
shall not discharge their seamen or land their passengers in the said 
Islands, except at Lahaina and Honolulu ; and in all the ports named in 
this artiele, the whale-ships of the United States shall enjoy in all re- 
spects whatsoever, all the rights, privileges, and immunities, which are 
enjoyed by, or shall be granted to, the whale-ships of the most favored 
foreign nation. The like privilege of frequenting the three ports of the 
Sandwich Islands above-named in this article, not being ports of entry 
for merchant vessels, is also guarantied to all the public armed vessels, 
of the United States. But nothing in this article shall be construed as 
authorizing any vessel of the United States, having on board any dis- 
ease usually regarded as requiring quarantine, to enter, during the con- 



THE IIEAKT OF THE PACIFIC. 345 

tinuance of such disease on board, any port of the Sandwich Islands, 
other than Lahaina or Honolulu. 

Article 8. — The contracting parties engage, in regard to the personal 
privileges, that the citizens of .the United States of America shall enjoy 
in the dominions of His Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands, and 
the subjects of his said Majesty in the United States of America, that 
they shall have free and undoubted right to travel and to reside in the 
States of the two high contracting parties, subject to the same precau- 
tions of police which are practised towards the subjects or citizens of 
the most favored nations. They shall be entitled to occupy dwellings 
and warehouses, and to dispose of their personal property of every kind 
and description, by sale, gift, exchange, will, or in any other way what- 
ever, without the smallest hindrance or obstacle ; and their heirs or rep- 
resentatives, being subjects or citizens of the other contracting party, 
shall succeed to their personal goods, whether by testament or ab in- 
testato; and may take possession thereof, either by themselves, or by 
others acting for them, and dispose of the same at will, paying to the 
profit of the respective governments such dues only as the inhabitants 
of the country wherein the said goods are, shall be subject to pay in 
like cases. And in case of the absence of the heirs and representative, 
such care shall be taken of the said goods as would be taken of the goods 
of a native of the same country in like case, until the lawful owner may 
take measures for receiving them. And if a question should arise among 
several claimants as to which of them said goods belong, the same shall 
be decided finally by the laws and judges of the land wherein the said 
goods are. Where, on the decease of any person holding real estate 
within the territories of one party, such real estate would, by the laws 
of the land, descend on a citizen or subject of the other, were he not 
disqualified by alienage, such citizen or subject shall be allowed a 
reasonable time to sell the same, and to withdraw the proceeds without 
molestation, and exempt from all duties of detraction on the part of the 
government of the respective States. The citizens or subjects of the 
contracting parties shall not be obliged to pay, under any pretence what- 
ever, any taxes or impositions, other or greater than those which are 
paid, or may hereafter be paid, by the subjects or citizens of the most 
favored nations in the respective States of the high contracting parties. 
They shall be exempt from all military service, whether by land or by 
sea ; from forced loans, and from every extraordinary contribution not 
general and by law established. Their dwellings, warehouses, and all 
premises appertaining thereto, destined for the purposes of commerce or 
residence, shall be respected. No arbitrary search of, or visit to their 
•houses, and no arbitrary examination or inspection whatever of the books, 
papers, or accounts of their trade, shall be made ; but such measures 
shall be executed only in conformity with the legal sentence of a com- 
petent tribunal; and each of the two contracling parties engages that 

15* 



346 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



the citizens or subjects of the other residing in their respective States, 
shall enjoy their property and personal security, in as full and ample 
manner as their own citizens or subjects, or the subjects or citizens of 
the most favored nation, but subject always to the laws and statutes of 
the two countries respectively. 

Article 9. — The citizens and subjects of each of the two contracting 
parties shall be free .in the States of the other to manage their own 
affairs themselves, or to commit those affairs to the management of any 
persons whom they may appoint as their broker, factor, or agent ; nor 
shall the citizens and subjects of the two contracting parties be restrained 
in their choice of persons to act in such capacities, nor shall they be 
called upon to pay any salary or remuneration to any person whom 
they shall not choose to employ. Absolute freedom shall be given in 
all cases to the buyer and seller to bargain together, and to fix the 
price of any goods or merchandise imported into, or to be exported 
from, the States and dominions of the two contracting parties ; save and 
except generally such cases wherein the laws and usages of the country 
may require the intervention of any special agents in the States and 
dominions of the contracting parties. But nothing contained in this or 
any other article of the present treaty shall be construed to authorize 
the sale of spirituous liquors to the natives of the Sandwich Islands 
further than such sale may be allowed by the Hawaiian laws. 

Article 10. — Each of the two contracting parties may have, in the 
ports of the other, consuls, vice-consuls, and commercial agents, of their 
own appointment, who shall enjoy the same privileges and powers with 
those of the most favored nation ; but if any such consuls shall exercise 
commerce, they shall be subject to the same laws and usages to which 
the private individuals of their nation are subject in the same place. 
The said consuls, vice-consuls, and commercial agents, are authorized to 
require the assistance of the local authorities for the search, arrest, 
detention, and imprisonment of the deserters from the ships of war and 
merchant vessels of their country. For this purpose they shall apply 
to the competent tribunals, judges, and officers, and shall in writing 
demand the said deserters, proving, by the exhibition of registers of the 
vessels, the rolls of the crews, or by other official documents, that such 
individuals formed part of the crews ; and this reclamation being thus 
substantiated, the surrender shall not be refused. Such deserters when 
arrested shall be placed at the disposal of the said consuls, vice-consuls, 
or commercial agents, and may be confined in the public prisons at the 
request and cost of those who shall claim them, in order to be detained 
until the time when they shall be restored to the vessel to which they 
belonged, or sent back to their own country by a vessel of the same, 
nation or any other vessel whatsoever. The agents, owners, or masters 
of vessels, on account of wliom the deserters have been apprehended, 
upon requisition of the local authorities, shall be required to take or 






THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 347 

send away such deserters from the States and dominions of the contract- 
ing parties, or give such security for their good conduct as the law may 
require. But if not sent back nor reclaimed within six months from the 
day of then arrest, or if all the expenses of such imprisonment are not 
defrayed by the party causing such arrest and imprisonment, they shall 
be set at liberty, and shall not be again arrested for the same cause. 
However, if the deserters should be found to have committed any 
crime or offence, their surrender may be delayed until the tribunal 
before whom their case shall be depending shall have pronounced its 
sentence and such sentence shall have been carried into effect. 

Article 11. — It is agreed that perfect and entire liberty of conscience 
shall be enjoyed by the citizens and subjects of both the contracting 
parties, in the countries of the one and the other, without their being 
liable to be disturbed or molested on account of their religious belief. 
But nothing contained in this article shall be construed to interfere 
with the exclusive right of the Hawaiian Government to regulate 
for itself the schools which it may establish or support within its. 
jurisdiction. 

Article 12. — If any ships of war or other vessels be wrecked on the 
coasts of the States or territories of either of the contracting parties, 
such ships or vessels, or any parts thereof, and all furniture and appur- 
tenances belonging thereunto, and all goods and merchandise which 
shall be saved therefrom, or the produce thereof if sold, shall be faith- 
fully restored with the least possible delay to the proprietors, upon 
being claimed by them, or by their duly authorized factors; and if 
there are no such proprietors or factors on the spot, then the said goods 
and merchandise, or the proceeds thereof, as well as all the papers 
found on board such wrecked ships or vessels, shall be delivered to the 
American or Hawaiian consul or vice-consul in whose district the wreck 
may have taken place ; and such consul, vice-consul, proprietors, or 
factors, shall pay only the expenses incurred in the preservation of the 
property, together with the rate of salvage and expenses of quarantine 
which would have been payable in the like case of a wreck of a national 
vessel ; and the goods and merchandise saved from the wreck shall not 
be subject to duties unless entered for consumption ; it being understood 
that in case of any legal claim upon such wreck, goods, or merchandise, 
the same shall be referred for decision to the competent tribunals of 
the country. 

Article 13. — The vessels of either of the two contracting parties 
which may be forced by stress of weather or other cause into one of the 
ports of the other, shall be exempt from all duties of port or navigation, 
paid for the benefit of the State, if the motives which led to their seek- 
ing refuge be real and evident, and if no cargo be discharged or taken 
on board, save such as may relate to the subsistence of the crew, or be 
necessary for the repair of the vessels, and if they do not stay in port 



34:8 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

beyond the time necessary, keeping in view the cause which led to their 
seeking refuge. 

Article 14. — The contracting parties mutually agree to surrender, 
upon official requisition, to the authorities of each, all persons who, being 
charged with the crimes of murder, piracy, arson, robbery, forgery, or 
the utterance of forged paper, committed within the jurisdiction of 
either, shall be found within the territories of the other ; provided that 
this shall only be done upon such evidence of criminality as, according to 
the laws of the place where the person so charged shall be found, would 
justify his apprehension and commitment for trial if the crime had there 
been committed ; and the respective judges and other magistrates of 
the two governments shall have authority, upon complaint made under 
oath, to issue a warrant for the apprehension of the person so charged, 
that he may be brought before such judges or other magistrates respec- 
tively, to the end that the evidence of criminality may be heard and 
considered; and if on such hearing the evidence be deemed sufficient to 
sustain the charge, it shall be the duty of the examining judge or ma- 
gistrate to certify the same to the proper executive authority, that a 
warrant may issue for the surrender of such fugitive. The expense of 
such apprehension and delivery shall be borne and defrayed by the party 
who makes the requisition and receives the fugitive. 

Article 15. — So soon as steam or other mail packets under the flag 
of either of the contracting parties shall have commenced running 
between their respective ports of entry, the contracting parties agree 
to receive at the post J offices of those ports all mailable matter, and to 
forward it as directed, the destination being to some regular post-office 
of either country ; charging thereupon the regular postal rates as estab- 
lished by law in the territories of either party receiving said mailable 
matter, in addition to the 'original postage of the office whence the mail 
was sent. Mails for the United States shall be made up at regular 
intervals at the Hawaiian post-office, and dispatched to ports of the 
United States, the postmasters at which ports shall open the same, and 
forward the inclosed matter as directed, crediting the Hawaiian Govern-, 
ment with their postages as established by law and stamped upon each 
manuscript or printed sheet. 

All mailable matter destined for the Hawaiian Islands shall be re- 
ceived at the several post-offices in the United States, and forwarded 
to San Francisco or other ports on the Pacific coast of the United States, 
whence the postmasters shall dispatch it by the regular mail-packets to 
Honolulu, the Hawaiian Government agreeing on their part to receive 
and collect for, and credit the post-office department of the United 
States with, the United States rates charged thereupon. It shall be 
optional to prepay postage on letters in either country, but postage on 
printed sheets and newspapers shall in all cases be prepaid. The 
respective post-office departments of the contracting parties shall, in 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 340 



their accounts, which are to be adjusted annually, be credited with all 
dead letters returned. 

Article 16. — The present treaty shall be in force from the date of 
the exchange of the ratifications for the term of ten years, and further, 
until the end of twelve months after either of the contracting parties 
shall have given notice to the other of its intention to terminate the 
same, each of the said contracting parties reserving to itself the right of 
giving such notice at the end of the said term of ten years, or at any 
subsequent term. 

• Any citizen or subject of either party infringing the articles of this 
treaty shall be held responsible for the same, and the harmony and good 
correspondence between the two governments shall not be interrupted 
thereby, each party engaging in no way to protect the offender or sanc- 
tion such violation. 

Article 17. — The present treaty shall be ratified by the President 
of the United States of America, by and with the advice and consent of 
the Senate of the said States, and by His Majesty the King of the Ha- 
waiian Islands, by and with the advice of his Privy Council of State, 
and the ratifications shall be exchanged at Honolulu within eighteen 
months from the date of its signature, or sooner if possible. 

In witness whereof, the respective plenipotentiaries have signed the 
same in triplicate, and have thereto affixed their seals. Done at Wash- 
ington, in the English language, the twentieth day of December, in the 
year one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine. 

JOHN M. CLAYTON, 
JAMES JACKSON JARVES. 



And whereas we have carefully examined all the points and articles 
thereof, by and with the advice of our Privy Council of State, we have 
confirmed and ratified the foregoing treaty, and we do confirm and ratify 
the same in the most effectual manner, promising on our faith and word 
as King, for us and our successors, to fulfil and observe it faithfully and 
scrupulously in all its clauses. 

In faith of which we have signed this ratification with our own hand, 
and have affixed thereto the great seal of our kingdom. 
' Given at our palace of Honolulu, this nineteenth day of August, in 
the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty, and in the 
twenty-fifth of our reign. 

KAMEHAMEHA. 

KEONI ANA. 

By the King and the Premier. 

R. C. WYLLIE, 

Minister of Foreign "Relations. 



350 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



EXCHANGE OF RATIFICATIONS. 

We the undersigned, Robert Crichton Wyllie, Minister of Foreign 
Relations of bis Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands, and Charles 
Bunker, Consul of the United States for Lahaina, having been authorized 
by our respective governments to exchange the ratifications of the 
treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation between his Hawaiian 
Majesty and the United States, concluded and signed at Washington, 
on the twentieth day of December, one thousand eight hundred and 
forty-nine, certify, 

That we have this day met for that purpose, and after comparing the 
said ratifications each with the other, and both with the original of said 
treaty, have effected the exchange accordingly. 

In witness whereof, we have signed this certificate, -at Honolulu, this 
twenty-fourth day of August, one thousand eight hundred and fifty, and 
have thereunto affixed our respective seals. 

R. C. WYLLIE, 
CHARLES BUNKER. 



NOTE A, p. 196. 

The late researches of Professor Agassiz into the world of corals nat- 
urally suggest the inquiry whether the coral insect may not yet be 
employed by man for the construction of sea-walls and reefs, in places 
within or near the tropics, where they are needed. He has succeeded 
in obtaining living specimens of the coral zoophyte, and carefully pre- 
serving them so as to study at his leisure their habits and motions. 
Why, then, as we employ the silkworm and furnish it with food and 
material to spin for us our silks, and as we plant and form beds of oysters 
in favorable locations, where we please, why may we not also employ 
the agency of the coral lithophyte to lay the foundations, for instance, 
of a light-house, or to form a breakwater where one is needed ? Such 
a practical result is by no means improbable from the minute and 
scientific observations now making upon the busy little builders of the 
deep. 

The coral reefs of Florida have been carefully examined by Professor 
Agassiz, and he finds them to be barrier reefs, extending from the Tor- 
tugas to the mainland, conforming generally to the outline of the shore. 
Lagoon or circular reefs also occur, but there is no evidence there of the 
subsidence or elevation observed in the Pacific Ocean ; these are only 
12 or 13 feet above the level of the sea. The Florida reefs consist of 
the Astrea and Porites at the bottom, in a depth of from 60 to 100 feet. 
They are large hemispherical masses, some of them 12 feet in diameter, 
and containing 4,000,000 of individual polyps. Next succeeds the Me- 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 351 

andrina, which is also hemispherical in form, and sometimes 13 feet in 
diameter. At the top is found the Madrepore, of much harder texture 
than the preceding. It can exist only where the water is in constant 
motion, and thoroughly commingled with air — i. e. in a breaker or surf — 
they die in quiet waters. 

Throughout the whole extent of the Florida reef, openings occur, and 
produce islands called Keys, from one to fifteen miles long, and covered 
with a tropical vegetation. The reefs suffer abrasion by the action of the 
sea, and are broken up on a large scale by the perforations of shell-fish and 
marine worms. The coral sand which results from the attrition of the 
reefs is cemented by the carbonate of lime dissolved in the water, and 
a firm limestone is formed exhibiting indications of stratification, but 
little or no trace of original organic structure. Professor Agassiz has 
formerly spent much time in the careful study of the remarkable geo- 
logical formation of the Oolitic — Jura limestone. He found that the re- 
semblances presented by these Florida reefs were so strong that he 
could not doubt that the Jura limestone had such an origin. The southern 
portion of the peninsula consists of ancient reefs; (hummocks,) and inter- 
vening levels, low and marshy, {everglades,) the whole having been won 
from the ocean by the coral polyps. 

These reefs are regarded with terror by the navigators, but behind 
them lie the wreckers, in quiet waters, while the storm rages without. 
With light-houses and appropriate beacons the openings through the 
reefs might furnish safe harbors. In answer to a question whether this 
process of reef-building would continue, obliterating the channel and 
joining the West Indies to the mainland, Professor Agassiz gave it as 
his conviction that the limit is already attained ; that the depth of water 
outside the present reefs is such as to prevent any more rising, but the 
present reefs may expand somewhat laterally. 

The island of Molokai were as well worth the visit of an Agassiz, for 
the study of its corals, as of the Christian traveller for its institutions of 
religion. We commend it as a field of study both to Agassiz and Guyot, 
which they will find equal facilities for investigating, either as annexed 
to, or under the protectorate of the United States. The following is 
the latest view of it as a missionary field, contained in the August num- 
ber of the Journal of Missions for 1851. 

Seventeen years ago the inhabitants of Molokai, one of the Sandwich 
Islands, were living in a state of heathenism, which the officers of the 
United States Exploring Expedition represent as one of the most sunken 
in which any portion of the human race has ever been found. They had 
no civilization or letters ; they scarcely had clothing or property of the 
lowest kind ; they lived in miserable huts, so fashioned that Modesty 
could not find entrance to them ; but in their deep degradation they 
had passions as evil and as strong as any other people. 



352 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



The following year, 1835, their present missionary, Mr. Hitchcock, took 
up his abode among them. God has greatly blessed his labors. Through 
his instrumentality chiefly, a change has been effected, which it does not 
often fall to the lot of man towitness. There are many aspects in which 
this change might be exhibited, but none of them more suggestive than 
that of the liberality of the church. 

For several years they have paid into the treasury of the Board more 
than enough to support their pastor. Last year they paid upwards of 
$500 to sustain him, contributed $700 at the monthly concert, and nearly 
$200 for other objects. From the beginning of the present year to March 
20th, less than three months, they have contributed $210 at the monthly 
concert, and have subscribed $1800 for the repair of their meeting-house, 
besides paying $100 for a son of their pastor, whom they have adopted 
as their beneficiary, and intend to educate in this country. 

Nor is this all. Owing to the broken surface of the island, valleys 
lying here and there between precipitous hills, numerous houses of wor- 
ship are needed for their convenience. In one of these valleys the in- 
habitants, not more, all told, than two hundred and fifty in number, are 
building a house, which, in addition to their own labor in getting stone, 
timber, lime, sand, etc., will cost them not far from $900, cash. And 
yet they have contributed more than $50 at the monthly concert the 
first three months of the year, have paid their proportion of their pastor's 
salary, and have also given for their poor. In another deep and secluded 
ravine, with but little more than a hundred inhabitants, they have put 
up a fine house, and introduced American chairs, and are now raising 
money for a bell. The house in the -plain of Kalaupapa was not well 
built, and the inhabitants are raising funds for a new one, having resolved 
to appropriate the other for a school-house. Besides all this, the people 
are building houses of worship in small neighborhoods, that they may 
meet in them for conference and prayer, their dwelling-houses not being 
convenient for such purpose. The members of the church, entirely of 
their own accord, have already built seven of these within three miles 
of the station in either direction, and are now at work on the eighth. 

Here is a church the foundations of which were laid only half a gen- 
eration back, in the midst of heathenism, and in one of its darkest and 
most degraded domains. The darkness has fled apace before the light 
which the Gospel brings, the degradation ivill soon be only a matter of 
history. This church makes abundant provision for its spiritual wants, 
and with a full hand is extending the blessings to others, which it knows 
so well how to prize. It is an example to be considered. How many 
churches now without a pastor because they feel unable to support one, 
or without a house of worship because they think themselves too poor to 
build one, would continue unsupplied, if this same spirit prevailed in 
them I How soon the means would be furnished for giving the Gospel 
to all the world, if every church possessed the same spirit of liberality ! 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 353 



And yet who will pronounce that the course of this church is not such 
as will give them the liveliest pleasure in the world to come ? 



NOTE B, p. 301. 

The remarks of Sir George Simpson, Governor-in-cfiief of the Hudson's 
Bay Company's Territories, in his volume entitled " Overland Journey 
of a Yoyage Round the World," are not less creditable to himself as a 
philanthropist and a close observer of mankind, than they are honorable 
to the American Missionaries at the Hawaiian Islands. While he per- 
haps awards to the natives a higher character than they have generally 
been deemed to deserve, he does full justice to the efforts of the mis- 
sionaries to ameliorate the temporal condition of the lower orders. He 
remarks, that " perhaps the industry of the natives is the quality which 
promises to be most conducive to their civilization. A habit, if not a 
love of labor has been implanted and cherished in them by a combina- 
tion of causes more or less peculiar to their condition, which chiefly, if 
not wholly, resolve themselves into the niggardliness of nature and the 
despotism of government. While many other Polynesian tribes almost 
realize the caricature of a copper-colored gentleman lying on his back 
under the branches of the bread-fruit, and doing nothing but keep his 
mouth open to catch the ripe rolls as they fall, the Hawaiians, as we 
have already had occasion to notice more than once, are compelled by 
the necessities of nature to earn their food by the sweat of their brow. 
Witness the construction of their fish-ponds, the preparation of their 
poi, and the cultivation of their kalo, with all its incidental toils of dig- 
ging and embanking the beds, of erecting and maintaining the aqueducts, 
of fixing and regulating the sluices. 

" So far as the kalo and poi are concerned, there are some localities, 
Lahaina, for instance, in Maui, in which the bread-fruit abounds, while, 
with a little care and attention,- it might be made to grow in all parts of 
the group ; but whether it be that this ready-made food be here of an 
inferior quality, or that the favorite dish of the natives has become in- 
dispensable to them, the bread-fruit is as little valued by the Sandwich 
Islanders as the kalo, which is indigenous in many parts of Polynesia, 
is valued by the indolent aborigines of the more southern groups. JNor 
is the despotism of government less influential in making the people 
work than the niggardliness of nature. Till very recently the common- 
ers of this archipelago, like the peasants of France before the revolution, 
or of Canada before the conquest, were taillables et corveables a rniseri- 
corde, or to invent English for the exotic abomination, taxable and task- 
able at discretion, while they were deterred alike from evasion or com- 
plaint by a mixture of feudal servility and superstitious terror. 

"But, within the last year or two, certain laws, for their share in 



354 LIFE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



which the missionaries deserve great credit, have so far remedied this 
evil as to subject the amounts and times of tasking and taxing to fixed 
rules ; ^and though the ascertained burdens are still too heavy and too 
numerous, comprising work for the immediate chief, work for the king, 
work for the public, rent for land and a poll-tax on both sexes, yet the 
restriction in- question, if fairly carried into actual effect, will engender 
in the serf the idea*.of property, and inspire him at once with the hope 
and the desire of improving his physical' condition by the application of 
his physical energies. 

" Though in many quarters of the group an adequate motive for ex- 
ertion may not at present be felt, yet in the neighborhood of Honolulu 
the sustenance of several* thousands, who are exclusively consumers, 
constitutes at once the proof and the recompense of the industry of the 
adjacent cultivators. In fact, the demand of the town affords an ample 
market for "the natives of the surrounding country, while there is cer- 
tainly no reason for the buyers to murmur as to the amount or variety 
of the supply. In addition to the resources of a stationary market, 
which is usually well furnished with fish, meat, fruit, etc./ the smaller 
dealers go from house to house to vend their wares, the whole scene, 
which is quite unique, savoring of any thing but indolence on the part 
of the rural population. 

" Early in the morning a crowd of natives may be seen flocking into 
Honolulu, all carrying something to sell. Most of them have large cala- 
bashes suspended in a netting at each end of a pole, which they carry 
across one shoulder, the contents being all sorts of small articles, kalo 
and poi, and fruits and vegetables, and milk and eggs, and, what is the 
safest speculation of all, water fresh from the cold atmosphere of the 
mountains ; some of them are. loaded with bundles of grass for the town- 
fed horses ; others carry a sucking pig in their arms, while the more 
substantial hog-merchants make the adult grunters, always there, as 
well as elsewhere, on the verge of insurrection, trudge along on their 
own petty toes ; others again import ducks and fowls, and geese and 
turkeys, all alive, tied by the legs to long poles, which are carried like 
the poles with the calabashes ; while last, though not least, a few indi- 
viduals of more airy and delicate sentiments hawk about various kinds 
of curiosities, such as mats, shells, scorpions, etc., but above all, wreaths 
of bright flowers intertwined with their kindred leaves for the beaux 
and belles of the metropolis." 

Evidence of the utility of the Sandwich Island mission, and of the 
vast benefit effected by it to the Hawaiian people, is constantly accru- 
ing from every quarter. A late number of the Journal of Missions pre- 
sents the following : " A short time since, Mr. Coan's church at Hilo, by 
a contribution of $100, made his Excellency R. C. Wyllie, Minister of 
Foreign Relations at Honolulu, an honorary member of the American 
Board. 



THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. 355 

" In a note to Mr. Castle, acknowledging the reception of the certificate 
of membership, he says, ' Wishing as well as I do, and have ever done, 
to that benevolent Board, I ought to have become a member long ago.' 
As he was anticipated in this, he immediately, by the payment of $100, 
constituted Mrs. Lee, wife of the Chief-justice of the Islands, a member. 
In addition to this substantial testimony to the good effected by mis- 
sions, he says, in a letter to the treasurer of the Board, whom he knew 
many years ago in Chili — ' I consider that the diffusion of knowledge 
and Christianity throughout the Hawaiian Islands is at once the proud- 
est achievement of any Foreign Missionary Society, and the greatest 
benefit that has been conferred on these Islands the last thirty-one years-' 

" Few men are better qualified to give an opinion on this subject than 
Mr. Wyllie. He is a Scotchman by birth, has seen much of the world, 
is a man of close observation and of large intelligence, and has resided 
for a long time at the Islands, where, for several years, he has, with 
distinguished credit to himself, and great advantage to the nation, filled 
his present highly responsible office. While yet a private resident there, 
an extended series of articles from his pen, on the Sandwich Islands, 
their productions, capabilities, etc., gave proof of an intimate knowledge 
of all that pertained to this group, and a just appreciation of their future 
importance." 



THE ENP. 



THE ISLAND. WORLD OF THE PACIFIC: 

BY REV. HENRY T. CHEEVER. 

WITH ENGRAVINGS. 12MO, MUSLIN, $1.00. 



This is a volume worthy of the age, and.of the present wants of the world. We have 
perused it with unmingled pleasure and delight, and promise any one who will take 
the trouble to open it, an amount and richness of information relative to the Polynesian 
world, to be obtained from no other source. It is copiously illustrated, and written in 
a flowing style, and with the marks of keen observation, Christian philosophy, and a 
critical insight into the world's woes, wants, and blessings, stamped on every page. In 
it are passages and chapters of exceeding beauty of description. The chapter on the 
Albatross, that glorious bird of the sea, is worth the price of the volume. — American 
Spectator. 

The volume presents a mass of information with regard to the history, geography, 
and commercial and political condition of those islands, brought down to the present 
time, and digested into a compact and readable form. His book cannot fail to be widely 
read during the present excitement in regard to every thing connected with the Pacific 
Ocean.-.- New York Tribune. 

The author informs us that the object of his book is to give a true and life-like pic- 
ture of the best part of Polynesia as it was in 1850. He has executed the task in a 
very creditable manner. The Christian public will welcome a volume from one who 
is„able and willing to tell the truth in regard to those islands where missionary opera- 
tions have been so successful, and yet the subject of so much detraction and abuse- 
The book contains much valuable information, connected with interesting anecdotes 
and personal adventures. It is illustrated by a score of well-executed engravings. 
The Appendix, giving a statistical view of the resources, trade, population, etc., of the 
Hawaiian Islands, is a valuable addition— Aew? York, Observer. . . 

It is full of information and life, telling stories of land and sea in a way to stir the 
passion for adventure with out harm to the sobriety of the reader's temper, or the stead- 
fastness of his faith. We need such books always, and especially now., when a new 
age of marine adventure is awakened,'and our youth are taking with fresh zeal to the 
seas. Voyages are always captivating to the young, and happy is it when the story is 
told by a Christian or a man of taste. The book is just the thing for the host of boys 
between fourteen and twenty, the mighty generation now starting on the race or voy- 
age of life. — Christian Enquirer. 

A charming book, which we can read with confidence in the author's statements, 

and with unflagging interest in the fresh scenes which they bring so vividly before our 

.minds. It is a most instructive book for young persons. The ocean paradises of 

which it makes report to us, will ere long be visited by summer tourists. — Unitarian 

Quarterly Examiner. ■ 

Those interested in the history of missions, as conducted in the Islands of the Sea, 
will wish to place this interesting and instructive volume both in their home and 
school libraries. Its style is pleasing, and as well calculated to engage the attention of 
the young as the fascinating romance, while, instead of presenting merely the ideal, it 
communicates the real and the useful. The numerous engravings add to its value, 
and give au accurate view of many points of interest in these far-off islands. — Advocate 
and Guardian. 

It is full of pleasing incident told in a pleasing vein, and lets one deeply into the 
reality of that island life, whereof Typee and Kaloolah gave us its mystery and ro- 
mance. Melville threw around his incidents of Polynesian adventure the soft, light, 
and bright hues of fairy creation, reducing his story in the minds of many to a pure 
myth. Cheever dresses his personal adventure in the soberer garb of truth ; and as he 
leads us on from group to group of those far-off isles, he drops here and there, all along 
the course of his route, practical and statistical observations, that let one deeply into 
the true state of these u haunts and homes" of another, though a brother race. — Ro- 
chester American, 



THE WHALE AND HIS CAPTORS: 

WITH ENGRAVINGS. 16MO, 60 CENTS. 

BY REV. HENRY T, CHEEVER. 



This elegantly printed and embellished volume is the production of a close observer, 
and a polished and able writer. The Whale's Biography, and a thousand incidents of 
whaling life, are racily and agreeably told, while the reflections of the Moralist and 
Christian voyager are unobtrusively thrown into the text. -An Appendix contains many 
valuable suggestions in regard to the moral and religious interests of seamen and whale- 
men. We know of few books which would be more eagerly sought after in District 
Libraries than this. — ffatertown Reformer. 

There is very much valuable information contained in a small compass — in fact, a 
complete history of that department of the Whale Fishery. Interspersed are glowing 
and graphic pictures of the ocean, its dangers, its storms, its calms, and the peculiar 
habits of those that roam its depths. It is a very readable and pleasant as well as 
profitable volume. — Albany Atlas. 

Since the issue of Dana's justly celebrated u Two Years Before the Mast," we have 
read nothing of sea-life and adventure so fresh, lively, and instructive as this beautiful 
book. It is full of life, anecdote, facts, incidents, and character, and succeeds in keep- 
ing the reader intensely occupied with the glories and wonders of the end. The con- 
templative eye and Christian heart with which the writer looks abroad upon the deep, 
and the fertile fancy with which he links the incidents, and even the phraseology of 
sea-life, with the most important and beautiful matters of religion and truth, are among 
the peculiar charms of the book. It is printed uniform with the Abbott's beautiful 
series of histories, and is well adapted for the reading of the young. — New York 
Evangelist. 

A charming volume, presenting the rarely combined features of being a book adapted 
alike to delight boys and men ; one which the naturalist will peruse for fresh informa- 
tion on the habits of Cetacea, and the clergyman recommend on account of the spirit 
of cheerful piety and truthfulness that pervades the narrative. — London Literary 
Gazette. 

A very readable and interesting volume, full of stirring adventure, hair-breadth 
escapes, and curious information. It is just the sort of book for the eager intelligences 
which at this season ofHhe year crowd around the Christmas table. — London Athenaeum. 

The adventures of a clergyman, who adopted a voyage in a whaler as a means of 
recruiting exhausted strength, present an abundance of material both for amusement 
and instruction. The naturalist will find a great many new particulars respecting the 
mammoth of the ocean, and the reader who delights in descriptions of hair-breadth 
escapes and perilous incidents, will be well pleased with the dish set before him. 
There is, moreover, a spirit of cheerful piety and truthfulness pervading the narrative 
that are very pleasing. Every branch of, and every circumstance connected with the 
whale fishery is glanced upon, and the habits of the animal form by no means the 
least entertaining portion of the book. — Christian Intelligencer. 

The author narrates the exciting events of a sea-voyage undertaken for his health, 
and the fisher of men is lost sight of in the description of the life and manners of the 
fishers offish. Strange to say, he has converted what Homer so frequently calls the 
tk untillable ocean," into a field prolific at once of romantic adventure, rich information, 
moral iustr action, and most absorbing interest. The reader is borne away through 
his pages with an attraction that reminds one of the boat drawn by the harpooned 
monster of the deep in his abortive efforts to escape his pursuers. We know of no 
reading of the kind which will afford a richer treat than this beautiful little volume of 
Mr. Cheever's. — New Church Repository. 

2 



MEMORIALS OF CAPTAIN OBADIAH CONGAR: 

BY REV. HENRY T. CHEEVER, 

16mo, muslin, 50 cents. 



This is a fitting monument to the memory of an old sailor, who, after having 
weathered many storms on the ocean of life, arrived safe, at an advanced age, in the 
haven of everlasting rest. There is a good deal of interesting incident in his life, but 
the most interesting circumstance is, that, in spite of the peculiar temptations to which 
his profession exposed him,- he maintained a close and humble walk with God. It is 
proper that the example of such a man should be embalmed, and Mr. Cheever has 
done it well. — New York Observer. 

The individuality described is that of a man exposed to the varied temptations and 
distractions of a sailor's life, but still drawn heavenward by the influence of the Spirit 
of God, and describing in a simple and unaffected manner the influence of God's mer- 
cies and chastisements in the formation of his character as a Christian. The tone of 
the book is healthy and liberal ; it appears to contain much to recommend it to the 
perusal of those who are looking to God as their "ever present help in every time of 
trouble." The author already enjoys a high reputation from his " Island World of 
the Pacific." — Parker's Journal. 

With the trials and adventures of a veteran sailor, there is blended in this narrative 
a minute account of his religious experience. Independent, therefore, of the interest 
of the memoir, the work, from its clear style and cheap form, is well adapted for the 
Sunday reading of the forecastle, and should be distributed by the friends of seamen. — 
Home Journal. 

This is a faithful, well-written, and instructive biography of an eminently practical 
good man. It deserves a place, and will have it, in our District and Sabbath-school 
libraries. — Hartford Courant. 

Captain Congar was a genuine old Puritan salt, who sailed for more than fifty years 
as a shipmaster out of this port. He, of course, led a life of vicissitude and adventure, 
which he relates, partly himself, and partly through Mr. Cheever, with great earnest- 
ness and simplicity. — Evening Post. 

In the autobiography of Captain Congar we find much to admire and more to re- 
spect. His life was one universally instructive, and cannot fail to be particularly in- 
teresting to every nautical individual, whether he be a shipmaster or an humble sea- 
man before the mast. He was eminently a holy man, a faithful Christian, and an un- 
tiring laborer, in the cause of his Master. It is appropriately dedicated by the author 
to the Seamen's Friend Societies of the two great commercial nations of the globe — 
England and America. — New York Farmer and Mechanic. 

From such a history useful lessons may be drawn, and its perusal will have a ten- 
dency to strengthen good purposes, and to incite others to follow a worthy example, 
while as a mere personal narrative it will be found entertaining and often of thrilling 
interest. — Northern Budget. 

We are glad to see a book of so much value added to the collection of Christian 
literature designed especially for seamen, and delineating, as it does, the good example 
of- one of their number, who spent a large portion of his fourscore years in "a life on 
the ocean wave." The tales of the sea, exposures, hair-breadth escapes, providential 
care experienced, and Christian testimony with which the book abounds, will, we 
doubt not, secure for it an extensive and profitable reading. — Family Guardian. 

The subject of this memoir was born in New Jersey, in 1767, and died in 1848, aged 
81. When a boy, he became a sailor, and in his eighteenth year commenced keeping 
a journal, from which the materials of this book are mostly derived. He became mate 
of a ship at the age of twenty-one. He afterwards became captain, and was ever found 
an humble, conscientious, and practical Christian mariner. When there was scarcely 
another of his fellow-captains, in England or America, to keep him in countenance, 
he would neither sail from port, nor allow any other than the absolutely necessary 
workings of the ship at sea, on Sunday. During the twenty-three voyages which he 
made while captain, he had the Sabbath carefully observed to the best of his ability, 
by all on board, and engaged in devotional services. His example is worthy of imi- 
tation. We believe it will do good, both in the forecastle and in the cabin. — Christian 
Watchman. 

3 



DEC 19 1901 




A. S. BARNES <k COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 



CHAMBERS' EDUCATIONAL COURSE. 

NATURAL SCIENCES. 















■ 






The Messrs. Chambers have employed the first professors in Scotland in the prepa- 
ration of these works. They are now offered to the schools of the United States, 
under the American revision of D. M. Reese, M. D., lAj.D.,late Superintendent of 
Public Schools in the city and county of New York. 

I. CHAMBERS' TREASURY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

II. CLARK'S ELEMENTS OF DRAWING & PERSPECTIVE. 

III. CHAMBERS' ELEMENTS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 
IVy REID & BAINS' CHEMISTRY AND ELECTRICITY. 

V. HAMILTON B S VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
VI- CHAMBERS' ELEMENTS OF ZOOLOGY. 
VII. PAGE'S ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY. 



■ 
■ 






. 



" It is well known that the original publishers of these works (the Messrs. Cham- 
bers of Edinburgh) are able to command the best talent in the preparation of their 
books, and that it is their practice to deal faithfully with the public. This series 
will not disappoint the reasonable expectations thus excited. They are elementary 
works prepared by authors in every way capable of doing justice to their respective 
undertakings, and who have evidently bestowed upon them the necessary time and 
to adapt them to their purpose. We recommend them to teachers and 
parents with confidence. If not introduced as class-books in the school, they may 
ied to excellent advantage in general exercises, and occasional class exer- 
for which every teacher ought to provide himself with an ample store of 
The volumes may be had separately ; and the one first named, in the 
8 of a teacher of the younger classes, might furnish an inexhaustible fund of 
amusement and . instruction. Together, they would constitute a rich treasure to a 
family of intelligent children, and impart a thirst for knowledge." — Vermont Chron. 



" Of all the numerous works of this class that have been published, there are 
none that have acquired a more thoroughly deserved and high reputation than this 
series. The Chambers of E , well known as the careful and intelligent pub- 

lishers of a vast number of works of much importance in the educational world, 
are the fathers of this Series of books, and 'the American editor has exercised an 
unusual degree of judgment in their preparation for the use of schools as well as 
private families in this country." — Philadelphia Bulletin. 



■; - 



"The titles furnish a key to the contents, and it is only necessary for us to say^ 
that the material of each volume is admirably worked up, presenting with sufficient 
fulness and with much clearness of method the several subjects which are treated." 
— Cincinnati GazettMf*. \ w 

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